Part VII

Of Systems of Moral Philosophy

Consisting of Four Sections

Section I
Of the Questions which ought to be examined in a Theory of Moral
Sentiments

VII.I.1

If we examine the most celebrated and remarkable of the
different theories which have been given concerning the nature
and origin of our moral sentiments, we shall find that almost all
of them coincide with some part or other of that which I have
been endeavouring to give an account of; and that if every thing
which has already been said be fully considered, we shall be at
no loss to explain what was the view or aspect of nature which
led each particular author to form his particular system. From
some one or other of those principles which I have been
endeavouring to unfold, every system of morality that ever had
any reputation in the world has, perhaps, ultimately been
derived. As they are all of them, in this respect, founded upon
natural principles, they are all of them in some measure in the
right. But as many of them are derived from a partial and
imperfect view of nature, there are many of them too in some
respects in the wrong.

VII.I.2

In treating of the principles of morals there are two
questions to be considered. First, wherein does virtue consist?
Or what is the tone of temper, and tenour of conduct, which
constitutes the excellent and praise-worthy character, the
character which is the natural object of esteem, honour, and
approbation? And, secondly, by what power or faculty in the mind
is it, that this character, whatever it be, is recommended. to
us? Or in other words, how and by what means does it come to
pass, that the mind prefers one tenour of conduct to another,
denominates the one right and the other wrong; considers the one
as the object of approbation, honour, and reward, and the other
of blame, censure, and punishment?

VII.I.3

We examine the first question when we consider whether virtue
consists in benevolence, as Dr. Hutcheson imagines; or in acting
suitably to the different relations we stand in, as Dr. Clarke
supposes; or in the wise and prudent pursuit of our own real and
solid happiness, as has been the opinion of others.

VII.I.4

We examine the second question, when we consider, whether the
virtuous character, whatever it consists in, be recommended to us
by self-love, which makes us perceive that this character, both
in ourselves and others, tends most to promote our own private
interest; or by reason, which points out to us the difference
between one character and another, in the same manner as it does
that between truth and falsehood; or by a peculiar power of
perception, called a moral sense, which this virtuous character
gratifies and pleases, as the contrary disgusts and displeases
it; or last of all, by some other principle in human nature, such
as a modification of sympathy, or the like.

VII.I.5

I shall begin with considering the systems which have been
formed concerning the first of these questions, and shall proceed
afterwards to examine those concerning the second.

Section II
Of the different Accounts which have been given of the Nature of
Virtue

VII.II.1

The different accounts which have been given of the nature of
virtue, or of the temper of mind which constitutes the excellent
and praise-worthy character, may be reduced to three different
classes. According to some, the virtuous temper of mind does not
consist in any one species of affections, but in the proper
government and direction of all our affections, which may be
either virtuous or vicious according to the objects which they
pursue, and the degree of vehemence with which they pursue them.
According to these authors, therefore, virtue consists in
propriety.

VII.II.2

According to others, virtue consists in the judicious pursuit
of our own private interest and happiness, or in the proper
government and direction of those selfish affections which aim
solely at this end. In the opinion of these authors, therefore,
virtue consists in prudence.

VII.II.3

Another set of authors make virtue consist in those
affections only which aim at the happiness of others, not in
those which aim at our own. According to them, therefore,
disinterested benevolence is the only motive which can stamp upon
any action the character of virtue.

VII.II.4

The character of virtue, it is evident, must either be
ascribed indifferently to all our affections, when under proper
government and direction; or it must be confined to some one
class or division of them. The great division of our affections
is into the selfish and the benevolent. If the character of
virtue, therefore, cannot be ascribed indifferently to all our
affections, when under proper government and direction, it must
be confined either to those which aim directly at our own private
happiness, or to those which aim directly at that of others. If
virtue, therefore, does not consist in propriety, it must consist
either in prudence or in benevolence. Besides these three, it is
scarce possible to imagine that any other account can be given of
the nature of virtue. I shall endeavour to show hereafter how all
the other accounts, which are seemingly different from any of
these, coincide at bottom with some one or other of them.

Chap. I
Of those Systems which make Virtue consist in Propriety

VII.II.5

According to Plato, to Aristotle, and to Zeno, virtue
consists in the propriety of conduct, or in the suitableness of
the affection from which we act to the object which excites it.

VII.II.6

I. In the system of Plato*10 the soul is considered as
something like a little state or republic, composed of three
different faculties or orders.

VII.II.7

The first is the judging faculty, the faculty which
determines not only what are the proper means for attaining any
end, but also what ends are fit to be pursued, and what degree of
relative value we ought to put upon each. This faculty Plato
called, as it is very properly called, reason, and considered it
as what had a right to be the governing principle of the whole.
Under this appellation, it is evident, he comprehended not only
that faculty by which we judge of truth and falsehood, but that
by which we judge of the propriety or impropriety of desires and
affections.

VII.II.8

The different passions and appetites, the natural subjects of
this ruling principle, but which are so apt to rebel against
their master, he reduced to two different classes or orders. The
first consisted of those passions, which are founded in pride and
resentment, or in what the schoolmen called the irascible part of
the soul; ambition, animosity, the love of honour, and the dread
of shame, the desire of victory, superiority, and revenge; all
those passions, in short, which are supposed either to rise from,
or to denote what, by a metaphor in our language, we commonly
call spirit or natural fire. The second consisted of those
passions which are founded in the love of pleasure, or in what
the schoolmen called the concupiscible part of the soul. It
comprehended all the appetites of the body, the love of ease and
security, and of all sensual gratifications.

VII.II.9

It rarely happens that we break in upon that plan of conduct,
which the governing principle prescribes, and which in all our
cool hours we had laid down to ourselves as what was most proper
for us to pursue, but when prompted by one or other of those two
different sets of passions; either by ungovernable ambition and
resentment, or by the importunate solicitations of present ease
and pleasure. But though these two orders of passions are so apt
to mislead us, they are still considered as necessary parts of
human nature: the first having been given to defend us against
injuries, to assert our rank and dignity in the world, to make us
aim at what is noble and honourable, and to make us distinguish
those who act in the same manner; the second, to provide for the
support and necessities of the body.

VII.II.10

In the strength, acuteness, and perfection of the governing
principle was placed the essential virtue of prudence, which,
according to Plato, consisted in a just and clear discernment,
founded upon general and scientific ideas, of the ends which were
proper to be pursued, and of the means which were proper for
attaining them.

VII.II.11

When the first set of passions, those of the irascible part
of the soul, had that degree of strength and firmness, which
enabled them, under the direction of reason, to despise all
dangers in the pursuit of what was honourable and noble; it
constituted the virtue of fortitude and magnanimity. This order
of passions, according to this system, was of a more generous and
noble nature than the other. They were considered upon many
occasions as the auxiliaries of reason, to check and restrain the
inferior and brutal appetites. We are often angry at ourselves,
it was observed, we often become the objects of our own
resentment and indignation, when the love of pleasure prompts to
do what we disapprove of; and the irascible part of our nature is
in this manner called in to assist the rational against the
concupiscible.

VII.II.12

When all those three different parts of our nature were in
perfect concord with one another, when neither the irascible nor
concupiscible passions ever aimed at any gratification which
reason did not approve of, and when reason never commanded any
thing, but what these of their own accord were willing to
perform: this happy composure, this perfect and complete harmony
of soul, constituted that virtue which in their language is
expressed by a word which we commonly translate temperance, but
which might more properly be translated good temper, or sobriety
and moderation of mind.

VII.II.13

Justice, the last and greatest of the four cardinal virtues,
took place, according to this system, when each of those three
faculties of the mind confined itself to its proper office,
without attempting to encroach upon that of any other; when
reason directed and passion obeyed, and when each passion
performed its proper duty, and exerted itself towards its proper
object easily and without reluctance, and with that degree of
force and energy, which was suitable to the value of what it
pursued. In this consisted that complete virtue, that perfect
propriety of conduct, which Plato, after some of the ancient
Pythagoreans, denominated Justice.

VII.II.14

The word, it is to be observed, which expresses justice in
the Greek language, has several different meanings; and as the
correspondent word in all other languages, so far as I know, has
the same, there must be some natural affinity among those various
significations. In one sense we are said to do justice to our
neighbour when we abstain from doing him any positive harm, and
do not directly hurt him, either in his person, or in his estate,
or in his reputation. This is that justice which I have treated
of above, the observance of which may be extorted by force, and
the violation of which exposes to punishment. In another sense we
are said not to do justice to our neighbour unless we conceive
for him all that love, respect, and esteem, which his character,
his situation, and his connexion with ourselves, render suitable
and proper for us to feel, and unless we act accordingly. It is
in this sense that we are said to do injustice to a man of merit
who is connected with us, though we abstain from hurting him in
every respect, if we do not exert ourselves to serve him and to
place him in that situation in which the impartial spectator
would be pleased to see him. The first sense of the word
coincides with what Aristotle and the Schoolmen call commutative
justice, and with what Grotius calls the justitia expletrix,
which consists in abstaining from what is another's, and in doing
voluntarily whatever we can with propriety be forced to do. The
second sense of the word coincides with what some have called
distributive justice,*11 and with the justitia attributrix of
Grotius, which consists in proper beneficence, in the becoming
use of what is our own, and in the applying it to those purposes
either of charity or generosity, to which it is most suitable, in
our situation, that it should be applied. In this sense justice
comprehends all the social virtues: There is yet another sense in
which the word justice is sometimes taken, still more extensive
than either of the former, though very much a-kin to the last;
and which runs too, so far as I know, through all languages. It
is in this last sense that we are said to be unjust, when we do
not seem to value any particular object with that degree of
esteem, or to pursue it with that degree of ardour which to the
impartial spectator it may appear to deserve or to be naturally
fitted for exciting. Thus we are said to do injustice to a poem
or a picture, when we do not admire them enough, and we are said
to do them more than justice when we admire them too much. In the
same manner we are said to do injustice to ourselves when we
appear not to give sufficient attention to any particular object
of self-interest. In this last sense, what is called justice
means the same thing with exact and perfect propriety of conduct
and behaviour, and comprehends in it, not only the offices of
both commutative and distributive justice, but of every other
virtue, of prudence, of fortitude, of temperance. It is in this
last sense that Plato evidently understands what he calls
justice, and which, therefore, according to him, comprehends in
it the perfection of every sort of virtue.

VII.II.15

Such is the account given by Plato of the nature of virtue,
or of that temper of mind which is the proper object of praise
and approbation. It consists, according to him, in that state of
mind in which every faculty confines itself within its proper
sphere without encroaching upon that of any other, and performs
its proper office with that precise degree of strength and vigour
which belongs to it. His account, it is evident, coincides in
every respect with what we have said above concerning the
propriety of conduct.

VII.II.16

II. Virtue, according to Aristotle,*12 consists in the habit
of mediocrity according to right reason. Every particular virtue,
according to him, lies in a kind of middle between two opposite
vices, of which the one offends from being too much, the other
from being too little affected by a particular species of
objects. Thus the virtue of fortitude or courage lies in the
middle between the opposite vices of cowardice and of
presumptuous rashness, of which the one offends from being too
much, and the other from being too little affected by the objects
of fear. Thus too the virtue of frugality lies in a middle
between avarice and profusion, of which the one consists in an
excess, the other in a defect of the proper attention to the
objects of self-interest. Magnanimity, in the same manner, lies
in a middle between the excess of arrogance and the defect of
pusillanimity, of which the one consists in too extravagant, the
other in too weak a sentiment of our own worth and dignity. It is
unnecessary to observe that this account of virtue corresponds
too pretty exactly with what has been said above concerning the
propriety and impropriety of conduct.

VII.II.17

According to Aristotle,*13 indeed, virtue did not so much
consist in those moderate and right affections, as in the habit
of this moderation. In order to understand this, it is to be
observed, that virtue may be considered either as the quality of
an action, or as the quality of a person. Considered as the
quality of an action, it consists, even according to Aristotle,
in the reasonable moderation of the affection from which the
action proceeds, whether this disposition be habitual to the
person or not. Considered as the quality of a person, it consists
in the habit of this reasonable moderation, in its having become
the customary and usual disposition of the mind. Thus the action
which proceeds from an occasional fit of generosity is
undoubtedly a generous action, but the man who performs it, is
not necessarily a generous person, because it may be the single
action of the kind which he ever performed. The motive and
disposition of heart, from which this action was performed, may
have been quite just and proper: but as this happy mood seems to
have been the effect rather of accidental humour than of any
thing steady or permanent in the character, it can reflect no
great honour on the performer. When we denominate a character
generous or charitable, or virtuous in any respect, we mean to
signify that the disposition expressed by each of those
appellations is the usual and customary disposition of the
person. But single actions of any kind, how proper and suitable
soever, are of little consequence to show that this is the case.
If a single action was sufficient to stamp the character of any
virtue upon the person who performed it, the most worthless of
mankind. might lay claim to all the virtues; since there is no
man who has not, upon some occasions, acted with prudence,
justice, temperance, and fortitude. But though single actions,
how laudable soever, reflect very little praise upon the person
who performs them, a single vicious action performed by one whose
conduct is usually very regular, greatly diminishes and sometimes
destroys altogether our opinion of his virtue. A single action of
this kind sufficiently shows that his habits are not perfect, and
that he is less to be depended upon, than, from the usual train
of his behaviour, we might have been apt to imagine.

VII.II.18

Aristotle too,*14 when he made virtue to consist in
practical habits, had it probably in his view to oppose the
doctrine of Plato, who seems to have been of opinion that just
sentiments and reasonable judgments concerning what was fit to be
done or to be avoided, were alone sufficient to constitute the
most perfect virtue. Virtue, according to Plato, might be
considered as a species of science, and no man, he thought, could
see clearly and demonstratively what was right and what was
wrong, and not act accordingly. Passion might make us act
contrary to doubtful and uncertain opinions, not to plain and
evident judgments. Aristotle, on the contrary, was of opinion,
that no conviction of the understanding was capable of getting
the better of inveterate habits, and that good morals arose not
from knowledge but from action.

VII.II.19

III. According to Zeno,*15 the founder of the Stoical
doctrine, every animal was by nature recommended to its own care,
and was endowed with the principle of self-love, that it might
endeavour to preserve, not only its existence, but all the
different parts of its nature, in the best and most perfect state
of which they were capable.

VII.II.20

The self-love of man embraced, if I may say so, his body and
all its different members, his mind and all its different
faculties and powers, and desired the preservation and
maintenance of them all in their best and most perfect condition.
Whatever tended to support this state of existence was,
therefore, by nature pointed out to him as fit to be chosen; and
whatever tended to destroy it, as fit to be rejected. Thus
health, strength, agility and ease of body as well as the eternal
conveniencies which could promote these; wealth, power, honours,
the respect and esteem of those we live with; were naturally
pointed out to us as things eligible, and of which the possession
was preferable to the want. On the other hand, sickness,
infirmity, unwieldiness, pain of body, as well as all the eternal
inconveniencies which tend to occasion or bring on any of them;
poverty, the want of authority, the contempt or hatred of those
we live with; were, in the same manner, pointed out to us as
things to be shunned and avoided. In each of those two opposite
classes of objects, there were some which appeared to be more the
objects either of choice or rejection, than others in the same
class. Thus, in the first class, health appeared evidently
preferable to strength, and strength to agility; reputation to
power, and power to riches. And thus too, in the second class,
sickness was more to be avoided than unwieldiness of body,
ignominy than poverty, and poverty than the loss of power. Virtue
and the propriety of conduct consisted in choosing and rejecting
all different objects and circumstances according as they were by
nature rendered more or less the objects of choice or rejection;
in selecting always from among the several objects of choice
presented to us, that which was most to be chosen, when we could
not obtain them all; and in selecting too, out of the several
objects of rejection offered to us, that which was least to be
avoided, when it was not in our power to avoid them all. By
choosing and rejecting with this just and accurate discernment,
by thus bestowing upon every object the precise degree of
attention it deserved, according to the place which it held in
this natural scale of things, we maintained, according to the
Stoics, that perfect rectitude of conduct which constituted the
essence of virtue. This was what they called to live
consistently, to live according to nature, and to obey those laws
and directions which nature, or the Author of nature, had
prescribed for our conduct.

VII.II.21

So far the Stoical idea of propriety and virtue is not very
different from that of Aristotle and the ancient Peripatetics.

VII.II.22

Among those primary objects which nature had recommended to
us as eligible, was the prosperity of our family, of our
relations, of our friends, of our country, of mankind, and of the
universe in general. Nature, too, had taught us, that as the
prosperity of two was preferable to that of one, that of many, or
of all, must be infinitely more so. That we ourselves were but
one, and that consequently wherever our prosperity was
inconsistent with that, either of the whole, or of any
considerable part of the whole, it ought, even in our own choice,
to yield to what was so vastly preferable. As all the events in
this world were conducted by the providence of a wise, powerful,
and good God, we might be assured that whatever happened tended
to the prosperity and perfection of the whole. If we ourselves,
therefore, were in poverty, in sickness, or in any other
calamity, we ought, first of all, to use our utmost endeavours,
so far as justice and our duty to others would allow, to rescue
ourselves from this disagreeable circumstance. But if, after all
we could do, we found this impossible, we ought to rest satisfied
that the order and perfection of the universe required that we
should in the mean time continue in this situation. And as the
prosperity of the whole should, even to us, appear preferable to
so insignificant a part as ourselves, our situation, whatever it
was, ought from that moment to become the object of our liking,
if we would maintain that complete propriety and rectitude of
sentiment and conduct in which consisted the perfection of our
nature. If, indeed, any opportunity of extricating ourselves
should offer, it became our duty to embrace it. The order of the
universe, it was evident, no longer required our continuance in
this situation, and the great Director of the world plainly
called upon us to leave it, by so clearly pointing out the road
which we were to follow. It was the same case with the adversity
of our relations, our friends, our country. If, without violating
any more sacred obligation, it was in our power to prevent or put
an end to their calamity, it undoubtedly was our duty to do so.
The propriety of action, the rule which Jupiter had given us for
the direction of our conduct, evidently required this of us. But
if it was altogether out of our power to do either, we ought then
to consider this event as the most fortunate which could possibly
have happened; because we might be assured that it tended most to
the prosperity and order of the whole, which was what we
ourselves, if we were wise and equitable, ought most of all to
desire. It was our own final interest considered as a part of
that whole, of which the prosperity ought to be, not only the
principal, but the sole object of our desire.

VII.II.23

'In what sense,' says Epictetus, 'are some things said to be
according to our nature, and others contrary to it? It is in that
sense in which we consider ourselves as separated and detached
from all other things. For thus it may be said to be according to
the nature of the foot to be always clean. But if you consider it
as a foot, and not as something detached from the rest of the
body, it must behove it sometimes to trample in the dirt, and
sometimes to tread upon thorns, and sometimes, too, to be cut off
for the sake of the whole body; and if it refuses this, it is no
longer a foot. Thus, too, ought we to conceive with regard to
ourselves. What are you? A man. If you consider yourself as
something separated and detached, it is agreeable to your nature
to live to old age, to be rich, to be in health. But if you
consider yourself as a man, and as a part of a whole, upon
account of that whole, it will behove you sometimes to be in
sickness, sometimes to be exposed to the inconveniency of a sea
voyage, sometimes to be in want; and at last, perhaps, to die
before your time. Why then do you complain? Do not you know that
by doing so, as the foot ceases to be a foot, so you cease to be
a man?'*16

VII.II.24

A wise man never complains of the destiny of Providence, nor
thinks the universe in confusion when he is out of order. He does
not look upon himself as a whole, separated and detached from
every other part of nature, to be taken care of by itself and for
itself. He regards himself in the light in which he imagines the
great genius of human nature, and of the world, regards him. He
enters, if I may say so, into the sentiments of that divine
Being, and considers himself as an atom, a particle, of an
immense and infinite system, which must and ought to be disposed
of, according to the conveniency of the whole. Assured of the
wisdom which directs all the events of human life, whatever lot
befalls him, he accepts it with joy, satisfied that, if he had
known all the connections and dependencies of the different parts
of the universe, it is the very lot which he himself would have
wished for. If it is life, he is contented to live; and if it is
death, as nature must have no further occasion for his presence
here, he willingly goes where he is appointed. I accept, said a
cynical philosopher, whose doctrines were in this respect the
same as those of the Stoics, I accept, with equal joy and
satisfaction, whatever fortune can befall me. Riches or poverty,
pleasure or pain, health or sickness, all is alike: nor would I
desire that the Gods should in any respect change my destination.
If I was to ask of them any thing beyond what their bounty has
already bestowed, it should be that they would inform me
before-hand what it was their pleasure should be done with me,
that I might of my own accord place myself in this situation, and
demonstrate the cheerfulness with which I embraced their
allotment. If I am going to sail, says Epictetus, I chuse the
best ship and the best pilot, and I wait for the fairest weather
that my circumstances and duty will allow. Prudence and
propriety, the principles which the Gods have given me for the
direction of my conduct, require this of me; but they require no
more: and if, notwithstanding, a storm arises, which neither the
strength of the vessel nor the skill of the pilot are likely to
withstand, I give myself no trouble about the consequence. All
that I had to do is done already. The directors of my conduct
never command me to be miserable, to be anxious, desponding, or
afraid. Whether we are to be drowned, or to come to a harbour, is
the business of Jupiter, not mine. I leave it entirely to his
determination, nor ever break my rest with considering which way
he is likely to decide it, but receive whatever comes with equal
indifference and security.

VII.II.25

From this perfect confidence in that benevolent wisdom which
governs the universe, and from this entire resignation to
whatever order that wisdom might think proper to establish, it
necessarily followed, that, to the Stoical wise man, all the
events of human life must be in a great measure indifferent. His
happiness consisted altogether, first, in the contemplation of
the happiness and perfection of the great system of the universe,
of the good government of the great republic of Gods and men, of
all rational and sensible beings; and, secondly, in discharging
his duty, in acting properly in the affairs of this great
republic whatever little part that wisdom had assigned to him.
The propriety or impropriety of his endeavours might be of great
consequence to him. Their success or disappointment could be of
none at all; could excite no passionate joy or sorrow, no
passionate desire or aversion. If he preferred some events to
others, if some situations were the objects of his choice and
others of his rejection, it was not because he regarded the one
as in themselves in any respect better than the other, or thought
that his own happiness would be more complete in what is called
the fortunate than in what is regarded as the distressful
situation; but because the propriety of action, the rule which
the Gods had given him for the direction of his conduct, required
him to chuse and reject in this manner. All his affections were
absorbed and swallowed up in two great affections; in that for
the discharge of his own duty, and in that for the greatest
possible happiness of all rational and sensible beings. For the
gratification of this latter affection, he rested with the most
perfect security upon the wisdom and power of the great
Superintendant of the universe. His sole anxiety was about the
gratification of the former; not about the event, but about the
propriety of his own endeavours. Whatever the event might be, he
trusted to a superior power and wisdom for turning it to promote
that great end which he himself was most desirous of promoting.

VII.II.26

This propriety of chusing and rejecting, though originally
pointed out to us, and as it were recommended and introduced to
our acquaintance by the things, and for the sake of the things,
chosen and rejected; yet when we had once become thoroughly
acquainted with it, the order, the grace, the beauty which we
discerned in this conduct, the happiness which we felt resulted
from it, necessarily appeared to us of much greater value than
the actual obtaining of all the different objects of choice, or
the actual avoiding of all those of rejection. From the
observation of this propriety arose the happiness and the glory;
from the neglect of it, the misery and the disgrace of human
nature.

VII.II.27

But to a wise man, to one whose passions were brought under
perfect subjection to the ruling principles of his nature, the
exact observation of this propriety was equally easy upon all
occasions. Was he in prosperity, he returned thanks to Jupiter
for having joined him with circumstances which were easily
mastered, and in which there was little temptation to do wrong.
Was he in adversity, he equally returned thanks to the director
of this spectacle of human life, for having opposed to him a
vigorous athlete, over whom, though the contest was likely to be
more violent, the victory was more glorious, and equally certain.
Can there be any shame in that distress which is brought upon us
without any fault of our own, and in which we behave with perfect
propriety? There can, therefore, be no evil, but, on the
contrary, the greatest good and advantage. A brave man exults in
those dangers in which, from no rashness of his own, his fortune
has involved him. They afford an opportunity of exercising that
heroic intrepidity, whose exertion gives the exalted delight
which flows from the consciousness of superior propriety and
deserved admiration. One who is master of all his exercises has
no aversion to measure his strength and activity with the
strongest. And, in the same manner, one who is master of all his
passions, does not dread any circumstance in which the
Superintendant of the universe may think proper to place him. The
bounty of that divine Being has provided him with virtues which
render him superior to every situation. If it is pleasure, he has
temperance to refrain from it; if it is pain, he has constancy to
bear it; if it is danger or death, he has magnanimity and
fortitude to despise it. The events of human life can never find
him unprepared, or at a loss how to maintain that propriety of
sentiment and conduct which, in his own apprehension, constitutes
at once his glory and his happiness.

VII.II.28

Human life the Stoics appear to have considered as a game of
great skill; in which, however, there was a mixture of chance, or
of what is vulgarly understood to be chance. In such games the
stake is commonly a trifle, and the whole pleasure of the game
arises from playing well, from playing fairly, and playing
skilfully. If notwithstanding all his skill, however, the good
player should, by the influence of chance, happen to lose, the
loss ought to be a matter, rather of merriment, than of serious
sorrow. He has made no false stroke; he has done nothing which he
ought to be ashamed of; he has enjoyed completely the whole
pleasure of the game. If, on the contrary, the bad player,
notwithstanding all his blunders, should, in the same manner,
happen to win, his success can give him but little satisfaction.
He is mortified by the remembrance of all the faults which he
committed. Even during the play he can enjoy no part of the
pleasure which it is capable of affording. From ignorance of the
rules of the game, fear and doubt and hesitation are the
disagreeable sentiments that precede almost every stroke which he
plays; and when he has played it, the mortification of finding it
a gross blunder, commonly completes the unpleasing circle of his
sensations. Human life, with all the advantages which can
possibly attend it, ought, according to the Stoics, to be
regarded but as a mere two-penny stake; a matter by far too
insignificant to merit any anxious concern. Our only anxious
concern ought to be, not about the stake, but about the proper
method of playing. If we placed our happiness in winning the
stake, we placed it in what depended upon causes beyond our
power, and out of our direction. We necessarily exposed ourselves
to perpetual fear and uneasiness, and frequently to grievous and
mortifying disappointments. If we placed it in playing well, in
playing fairly, in playing wisely and skilfully; in the propriety
of our own conduct in short; we placed it in what, by proper
discipline, education, and attention, might be altogether in our
own power, and under our own direction. Our happiness was
perfectly secure, and beyond the reach of fortune. The event of
our actions, if it was out of our power, was equally out of our
concern, and we could never feel either fear or anxiety about it;
nor ever suffer any grievous, or even any serious disappointment.

VII.II.29

Human life itself, as well as every different advantage or
disadvantage which can attend it, might, they said, according to
Different circumstances, be the proper object either of our
choice or of our rejection. If, in our actual situation, there
were more circumstances agreeable to nature than contrary to it;
more circumstances which were the objects of choice than of
rejection; life, in this case, was, upon the whole, the proper
object of choice, and the propriety of conduct required that we
should remain in it. If, on the other hand, there were, in our
actual situation, without any probable hope of amendment, more
circumstances contrary to nature than agreeable to it; more
circumstances which were the objects of rejection than of choice;
life itself, in this case, became, to a wise man, the object of
rejection, and he was not only at liberty to remove out of it,
but the propriety of conduct, the rule which the Gods had given
him for the direction of his conduct, required him to do so. I am
ordered, says Epictetus, not to dwell at Nicopolis. I do not
dwell there. I am ordered not to dwell at Athens. I do not dwell
at Athens. I am ordered not to dwell in Rome. I do not dwell in
Rome. I am ordered to dwell in the little and rocky island of
Gyarae. I go and dwell there. But the house smokes in Gyarae. If
the smoke is moderate, I will bear it, and stay there. If it is
excessive, I will go to a house from whence no tyrant can remove
me. I keep in mind always that the door is open, that I can walk
out when I please, and retire to that hospitable house which is
at all times open to all the world; for beyond my undermost
garment, beyond my body, no man living has any power over me. If
your situation is upon the whole disagreeable; if your house
smokes too much for you, said the Stoics, walk forth by all
means. But walk forth without, repining, without murmuring or
complaining. Walk forth calm, contented, rejoicing, returning
thanks to the Gods, who, from their infinite bounty, have opened
the safe and quiet harbour of death, at all times ready to
receive us from the stormy ocean of human life; who have prepared
this sacred, this inviolable, this great asylum, always open,
always accessible; altogether beyond the reach of human rage and
injustice; and large enough to contain both all those who wish,
and all those who do not wish to retire to it: an asylum which
takes away from every man every pretence of complaining, or even
of fancying that there can be any evil in human life, except such
as he may suffer from his own folly and weakness.

VII.II.30

The Stoics, in the few fragments of their philosophy which
have come down to us, sometimes talk of leaving life with a
gaiety, and even with a levity, which, were we to consider those
passages by themselves, might induce us to believe that they
imagined we could with propriety leave it whenever we had a mind,
wantonly and capriciously, upon the slightest disgust or
uneasiness. 'When you sup with such a person,' says Epictetus,
'you complain of the long stories which he tells you about his
Mysian wars. "Now my friend, says he, having told you how I took
possession of an eminence at such a place, I will tell you how I
was besieged in such another place." But if you have a mind not
to be troubled with his long stories, do not accept of his
supper. If you accept of his supper, you have not the least
pretence to complain of his long stories. It is the same case
with what you call the evils of human life. Never complain of
that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself.'
Notwithstanding this gaiety and even levity of expression,
however, the alternative of leaving life, or of remaining in it,
was, according to the Stoics, a matter of the most serious and
important deliberation. We ought never to leave it till we were
distinctly called upon to do so by that superintending power
which had originally placed us in it. But we were to consider
ourselves as called upon to do so, not merely at the appointed
and unavoidable term of human life. Whenever the providence of
that superintending Power had rendered our condition in life upon
the whole the proper object rather of rejection than of choice;
the great rule which he had given us for the direction of our
conduct, then required us to leave it. We might then be said to
hear the awful and benevolent voice of that divine Being
distinctly calling upon us to do so.

VII.II.31

It was upon this account that, according to the Stoics, it
might be the duty of a wise man to remove out of life though he
was perfectly happy; while, on the contrary, it might be the duty
of a weak man to remain in it, though he was necessarily
miserable. If, in the situation of the wise man, there were more
circumstances which were the natural objects of rejection than of
choice, the whole situation became the object of rejection, and
the rule which the Gods had given him for the direction of his
conduct, required that he should remove out of it as speedily as
particular circumstances might render convenient. He was,
however, perfectly happy even during the time that he might think
proper to remain in it. He had placed his happiness, not in
obtaining the objects of his choice, or in avoiding those of his
rejection; but in always choosing and rejecting with exact
propriety; not in the success, but in the fitness of his
endeavours and exertions. If, in the situation of the weak man,
on the contrary, there were more circumstances which were the
natural objects of choice than of rejection; his whole situation
became the proper object of choice, and it was his duty to remain
in it. He was unhappy, however, from not knowing how to use those
circumstances. Let his cards be ever so good, he did not know how
to play them, and could enjoy no sort of real satisfaction,
either in the progress, or in the event of the game, in whatever
manner it might happen to turn out.*17

VII.II.32

The propriety, upon some occasions, of voluntary death,
though it was, perhaps, more insisted upon by the Stoics, than by
any other sect of ancient philosophers, was, however, a doctrine
common to them all, even to the peaceable and indolent
Epicureans. During the age in which flourished the founders of
all the principal sects of ancient philosophy; during the
Peloponnesian war and for many years after its conclusion, all
the different republics of Greece were, at home, almost always
distracted by the most furious factions; and abroad, involved in
the most sanguinary wars, in which each sought, not merely
superiority or dominion, but either completely to extirpate all
its enemies, or, what was not less cruel, to reduce them into the
vilest of all states, that of domestic slavery, and to sell them,
man, woman, and child, like so many herds of cattle, to the
highest bidder in the market. The smallness of the greater part
of those states, too, rendered it, to each of them, no very
improbable event, that it might itself fall into that very
calamity which it had so frequently, either, perhaps, actually
inflicted, or at least attempted to inflict upon some of its
neighbours. In this disorderly state of things, the most perfect
innocence, joined to both the highest rank and the greatest
public services, could give no security to any man that, even at
home and among his own relations and fellow-citizens, he was not,
at some time or another, from the prevalence of some hostile and
furious faction, to be condemned to the most cruel and
ignominious punishment. If he was taken prisoner in war, or if
the city of which he was a member was conquered, he was exposed,
if possible, to still greater injuries and insults. But every man
naturally, or rather necessarily, familiarizes his imagination
with the distresses to which he foresees that his situation may
frequently expose him. It is impossible that a sailor should not
frequently think of storms and shipwrecks, and foundering at sea,
and of how he himself is likely both to feel and to act upon such
occasions. It was impossible, in the same manner, that a Grecian
patriot or hero should not familiarize his imagination with all
the different calamities to which he was sensible his situation
must frequently, or rather constantly expose him. As an American
savage prepares his death-song, and considers how he should act
when he has fallen into the hands of his enemies, and is by them
put to death in the most lingering tortures, and amidst the
insults and derision of all the spectators; so a Grecian patriot
or hero could not avoid frequently employing his thoughts in
considering what he ought both to suffer and to do in banishment,
in captivity, when reduced to slavery, when put to the torture,
when brought to the scaffold. But the philosophers of all the
different sects very justly represented virtue; that is, wise,
just, firm, and temperate conduct; not only as the most probable,
but as the certain and infallible road to happiness even in this
life. This conduct, however, could not always exempt, and might
even sometimes expose the person who followed it to all the
calamities which were incident to that unsettled situation of
public affairs. They endeavoured, therefore, to show that
happiness was either altogether, or at least in a great measure,
independent of fortune; the Stoics, that it was so altogether;
the Academic and Peripatetic philosophers, that it was so in a
great measure. Wise, prudent, and good conduct was, in the first
place, the conduct most likely to ensure success in every species
of undertaking; and secondly, though it should fail of success,
yet the mind was not left without consolation. The virtuous man
might still enjoy the complete approbation of his own breast; and
might still feel that, how untoward soever things might be
without, all was calm and peace and concord within. He might
generally comfort himself, too, with the assurance that he
possessed the love and esteem of every intelligent and impartial
spectator, who could not fail both to admire his conduct, and to
regret his misfortune.

VII.II.33

Those philosophers endeavoured, at the same time, to show,
that the greatest misfortunes to which human life was liable,
might be supported more easily than was commonly imagined. They
endeavoured to point out the comforts which a man might still
enjoy when reduced to poverty, when driven into banishment, when
exposed to the injustice of popular clamour, when labouring under
blindness, under deafness, in the extremity of old age, upon the
approach of death. They pointed out, too, the considerations
which might contribute to support his constancy under the agonies
of pain and even of torture, in sickness, in sorrow for the loss
of children, for the death of friends and relations, etc. The few
fragments which have come down to us of what the ancient
philosophers had written upon these subjects, form, perhaps, one
of the most instructive, as well as one of the most interesting
remains of antiquity. The spirit and manhood of their doctrines
make a wonderful contrast with the desponding, plaintive, and
whining tone of some modern systems.

VII.II.34

But while those ancient philosophers endeavoured in this
manner to suggest every consideration which could, as Milton
says, arm the obdured breast with stubborn patience, as with
triple steel; they, at the same time, laboured above all to
convince their followers that there neither was nor could be any
evil in death; and that, if their situation became at any time
too hard for their constancy to support, the remedy was at hand,
the door was open, and they might, without fear, walk out when
they pleased. If there was no world beyond the present, death,
they said, could be no evil; and if there was another world, the
Gods must likewise be in that other, and a just man could fear no
evil while under their protection. Those philosophers, in short,
prepared a death-song, if I may say so, which the Grecian
patriots and heroes might make use of upon the proper occasions;
and, of all the different sects, the Stoics, I think it must be
acknowledged, had prepared by far the most animated and spirited
song.

VII.II.35

Suicide, however, never seems to have been very common among
the Greeks. Excepting Cleomenes, I cannot at present recollect
any very illustrious either patriot or hero of Greece, who died
by his own hand. The death of Aristomenes is as much beyond the
period of true history as that of Ajax. The common story of the
death of Themistocles, though within that period, bears upon its
face all the marks of a most romantic fable. Of all the Greek
heroes whose lives have been written by Plutarch, Cleomenes
appears to have been the only one who perished in this manner.
Theramines, Socrates, and Phocion, who certainly did not want
courage, suffered themselves to be sent to prison, and submitted
patiently to that death to which the injustice of their
fellow-citizens had condemned them. The brave Eumenes allowed
himself to be delivered up, by his own mutinous soldiers, to his
enemy Antigonus, and was starved to death, without attempting any
violence. The gallant Philopoemen suffered himself to be taken
prisoner by the Messenians, was thrown into a dungeon, and was
supposed to have been privately poisoned. Several of the
philosophers, indeed, are said to have died in this manner; but
their lives have been so very foolishly written, that very little
credit is due to the greater part of the tales which are told of
them. Three different accounts have been given of the death of
Zeno the Stoic. One is, that after enjoying, for ninety-eight
years, the most perfect state of health, he happened, in going
out of his school, to fall; and though he suffered no other
damage than that of breaking or dislocating one of his fingers,
he struck the ground with his hand, and, in the words of the
Niobe of Euripides, said, I come, why doest thou call me? and
immediately went home and hanged himself. At that great age, one
should think, he might have had a little more patience. Another
account is, that, at the same age, and in consequence of a like
accident, he starved himself to death. The third account is,
that, at seventy-two years of age, he died in the natural way; by
far the most probable account of the three, and supported too by
the authority of a co-temporary, who must have had every
opportunity of being well informed; of Persaeus, originally the
slave, and afterwards the friend and disciple of Zeno. The first
account is given by Apollonius of Tyre, who flourished about the
time of Augustus Caesar, between two and three hundred years
after the death of Zeno. I know not who is the author of the
second account. Apollonius, who was himself a Stoic, had probably
thought it would do honour to the founder of a sect which talked
so much about voluntary death, to die in this manner by his own
hand. Men of letters, though, after their death, they are
frequently more talked of than the greatest princes or statesmen
of their times, are generally, during their life, so obscure and
insignificant that their adventures are seldom recorded by
co-temporary historians. Those of after-ages, in order to satisfy
the public curiosity, and having no authentic documents either to
support or to contradict their narratives, seem frequently to
have fashioned them according to their own fancy; and almost
always with a great mixture of the marvellous. In this particular
case the marvellous, though supported by no authority, seems to
have prevailed over the probable, though supported by the best.
Diogenes Laertius plainly gives the preference to the story of
Apollonius. Lucian and Lactantius appear both to have given
credit to that of the great age and of the violent death.

VII.II.36

This fashion of voluntary death appears to have been much
more prevalent among the proud Romans, than it ever was among the
lively, ingenious, and accommodating Greeks. Even among the
Romans, the fashion seems not to have been established in the
early and, what are called, the virtuous ages of the republic.
The common story of the death of Regulus, though probably a
fable, could never have been invented, had it been supposed that
any dishonour could fall upon that hero, from patiently
submitting to the tortures which the Carthaginians are said to
have inflicted upon him. In the later ages of the republic some
dishonour I apprehend, would have attended this submission. In
the different civil wars which preceded the fall of the
commonwealth, many of the eminent men of all the contending
parties chose rather to perish by their own hands, than to fall
into those of their enemies. The death of Cato, celebrated by
Cicero, and censured by Caesar, and become the subject of a very
serious controversy between, perhaps, the two most illustrious
advocates that the world had ever beheld, stamped a character of
splendour upon this method of dying which it seems to have
retained for several ages after. The eloquence of Cicero was
superior to that of Caesar. The admiring prevailed greatly over
the censuring party, and the lovers of liberty, for many ages
afterwards, looked up to Cato as to the most venerable martyr of
the republican party. The head of a party, the Cardinal de Retz
observes, may do what he pleases; as long as he retains the
confidence of his own friends, he can never do wrong; a maxim of
which his Eminence had himself, upon several occasions, an
opportunity of experiencing the truth. Cato, it seems, joined to
his other virtues that of an excellent bottle companion. His
enemies accused him of drunkenness, but, says Seneca, whoever
objected this vice to Cato, will find it much easier to prove
that drunkenness is a virtue, than that Cato could be addicted to
any vice.

VII.II.37

Under the Emperors this method of dying seems to have been,
for a long time, perfectly fashionable. In the epistles of Pliny
we find an account of several persons who chose to die in this
manner, rather from vanity and ostentation, it would seem, than
from what would appear, even to a sober and judicious Stoic, any
proper or necessary reason. Even the ladies, who are seldom
behind in following the fashion, seem frequently to have chosen,
most unnecessarily, to die in this manner; and, like the ladies
in Bengal, to accompany, upon some occasions, their husbands to
the tomb. The prevalence of this fashion certainly occasioned
many deaths which would not otherwise have happened. All the
havock, however, which this, perhaps the highest exertion of
human vanity and impertinence, could occasion, would, probably,
at no time, be very great.

VII.II.38

The principle of suicide, the principle which would teach us,
upon some occasions, to consider that violent action as an object
of applause and approbation, seems to be altogether a refinement
of philosophy. Nature, in her sound and healthful state, seems
never to prompt us to suicide. There is, indeed, a species of
melancholy (a disease to which human nature, among its other
calamities, is unhappily subject) which seems to be accompanied
with, what one may call, an irresistible appetite for
self-destruction. In circumstances often of the highest external
prosperity, and sometimes too, in spite even of the most serious
and deeply impressed sentiments of religion, this disease has
frequently been known to drive its wretched victims to this fatal
extremity. The unfortunate persons who perish in this miserable
manner, are the proper objects, not of censure, but of
commiseration. To attempt to punish them, when they are beyond
the reach of all human punishment, is not more absurd than it is
unjust. That punishment can fall only on their surviving friends
and relations, who are always perfectly innocent, and to whom the
loss of their friend, in this disgraceful manner, must always be
alone a very heavy calamity. Nature, in her sound and healthful
state, prompts us to avoid distress upon all occasions; upon many
occasions to defend ourselves against it, though at the hazard,
or even with the certainty of perishing in that defence. But,
when we have neither been able to defend ourselves from it, nor
have perished in that defence, no natural principle, no regard to
the approbation of the supposed impartial spectator, to the
judgment of the man within the breast, seems to call upon us to
escape from it by destroying ourselves. It is only the
consciousness of our own weakness, of our own incapacity to
support the calamity with proper manhood and firmness, which can
drive us to this resolution. I do not remember to have either
read or heard of any American savage, who, upon being taken
prisoner by some hostile tribe, put himself to death, in order to
avoid being afterwards put to death in torture, and amidst the
insults and mockery of his enemies. He places his glory in
supporting those torments with manhood, and in retorting those
insults with tenfold contempt and derision.

VII.II.39

This contempt of life and death, however, and, at the same
time, the most entire submission to the order of Providence; the
most complete contentment with every event which the current of
human affairs could possibly cast up, may be considered as the
two fundamental doctrines upon which rested the whole fabric of
Stoical morality. The independent and spirited, but often harsh
Epictetus, may be considered as the great apostle of the first of
those doctrines: the mild, the humane, the benevolent Antoninus,
of the second.

VII.II.40

The emancipated slave of Epaphriditus, who, in his youth, had
been subjected to the insolence of a brutal master, who, in his
riper years, was, by the jealousy and caprice of Domitian,
banished from Rome and Athens, and obliged to dwell at Nicopolis,
and who, by the same tyrant, might expect every moment to be sent
to Gyarae, or, perhaps, to be put to death; could preserve his
tranquillity only by fostering in his mind the most sovereign
contempt of human life. He never exults so much, accordingly his
eloquence is never so animated as when he represents the futility
and nothingness of all its pleasures and all its pains.

VII.II.41

The good-natured Emperor, the absolute sovereign of the whole
civilized part of the world, who certainly had no peculiar reason
to complain of his own allotment, delights in expressing his
contentment with the ordinary course of things, and in pointing
out beauties even in those parts of it where vulgar observers are
not apt to see any. There is a propriety and even an engaging
grace, he observes, in old age as well as in youth; and the
weakness and decrepitude of the one state are as suitable to
nature as the bloom and vigour of the other. Death, too, is just
as proper a termination of old age, as youth is of childhood, or
manhood of youth. As we frequently say, he remarks upon another
occasion, that the physician has ordered to such a man to ride on
horseback, or to use the cold bath, or to walk barefooted; so
ought we to say, that Nature, the great conductor and physician
of the universe, has ordered to such a man a disease, or the
amputation of a limb, or the loss of a child. By the
prescriptions of ordinary physicians the patient swallows many a
bitter potion; undergoes many a painful operation. From the very
uncertain hope, however, that health may be the consequence, he
gladly submits to all. The harshest prescriptions of the great
Physician of nature, the patient may, in the same manner, hope
will contribute to his own health, to his own final prosperity
and happiness: and he may be perfectly assured that they not only
contribute, but are indispensably necessary to the health, to the
prosperity and happiness of the universe, to the furtherance and
advancement of the great plan of Jupiter. Had they not been so,
the universe would never have produced them; its all-wise
Architect and Conductor would never have suffered them to happen.
As all, even the smallest of the co-existent parts of the
universe, are exactly fitted to one another, and all contribute
to compose one immense and connected system; so all, even
apparently the most insignificant of the successive events which
follow one another, make parts, and necessary parts, of that
great chain of causes and effects which had no beginning, and
which will have no end; and which, as they all necessarily result
from the original arrangement and contrivance of the whole; so
they are all essentially necessary, not only to its prosperity,
but to its continuance and preservation. Whoever does not
cordially embrace whatever befals him, whoever is sorry that it
has befallen him, whoever wishes that it had not befallen him,
wishes, so far as in him lies, to stop the motion of the
universe, to break that great chain of succession, by the
progress of which that system can alone be continued and
preserved, and, for some little conveniency of his own, to
disorder and discompose the whole machine of the world. 'O
world,' says he, in another place, 'all things are suitable to me
which are suitable to thee. Nothing is too early or too late to
me which is seasonable for thee. All is fruit to me which thy
seasons bring forth. From thee are all things; in thee are all
things; for thee are all things. One man says, O beloved city of
Cecrops. Wilt not thou say, O beloved city of God?'

VII.II.42

From these very sublime doctrines the Stoics, or at least
some of the Stoics, attempted to deduce all their paradoxes.

VII.II.43

The Stoical wise man endeavoured to enter into the views of
the great Superintendant of the universe, and to see things in
the same light in which that divine Being beheld them. But, to
the great Superintendant of the universe, all the different
events which the course of his providence may bring forth, what
to us appear the smallest and the greatest, the bursting of a
bubble, as Mr. Pope says, and that of a world, for example, were
perfectly equal, were equally parts of that great chain which he
had predestined from all eternity, were equally the effects of
the same unerring wisdom, of the same universal and boundless
benevolence. To the Stoical wise man, in the same manner, all
those different events were perfectly equal. In the course of
those events, indeed, a little department, in which he had
himself some little management and direction, had been assigned
to him. In this department he endeavoured to act as properly as
he could, and to conduct himself according to those orders which,
he understood, had been prescribed to him. But he took no anxious
or passionate concern either in the success, or in the
disappointment of his own most faithful endeavours. The highest
prosperity and the total destruction of that little department,
of that little system which had been in some measure committed to
his charge, were perfectly indifferent to him. If those events
had depended upon him, he would have chosen the one, and he would
have rejected the other. But as they did not depend upon him, he
trusted to a superior wisdom, and was perfectly satisfied that
the event which happened, whatever it might be, was the very
event which he himself, had he known all the connections and
dependencies of things, would most earnestly and devoutly have
wished for. Whatever he did under the influence and direction of
those principles was equally perfect; and when he stretched out
his finger, to give the example which they commonly made use of,
he performed an action in every respect as meritorious, as worthy
of praise and admiration, as when he laid down his life for the
service of his country. As, to the great Superintendant of the
universe, the greatest and the smallest exertions of his power,
the formation and dissolution of a world, the formation and
dissolution of a bubble, were equally easy, were equally
admirable, and equally the effects of the same divine wisdom and
benevolence; so, to the Stoical wise man, what we would call the
great action required no more exertion than the little one, was
equally easy, proceeded from exactly the same principles, was in
no respect more meritorious, nor worthy of any higher degree of
praise and admiration.

VII.II.44

As all those who had arrived at this state of perfection,
were equally happy. so all those who fell in the smallest degree
short of it, how nearly soever they might approach to it, were
equally miserable. As the man, they said, who was but an inch
below the surface of the water, could no more breathe than he who
was an hundred yards below it; so the man who had not completely
subdued all his private, partial, and selfish passions, who had
any other earnest desire but that for the universal happiness,
who had not completely emerged from that abyss of misery and
disorder into which his anxiety for the gratification of those
private, partial, and selfish passions had involved him, could no
more breathe the free air of liberty and independency, could no
more enjoy the security and happiness of the wise man, than he
who was most remote from that situation. As all the actions of
the wise man were perfect, and equally perfect; so all those of
the man who had not arrived at this supreme wisdom were faulty,
and, as some Stoics pretended, equally faulty. As one truth, they
said, could not be more true, nor one falsehood more false than
another; so an honourable action could not be more honourable,
nor a shameful one more shameful than another. As in shooting at
a mark, the man who missed it by an inch had equally missed it
with him who had done so by a hundred yards; so the man who, in
what to us appears the most insignificant action, had acted
improperly and without a sufficient reason, was equally faulty
with him who had done so in, what to us appears, the most
important; the man who has killed a cock, for example, improperly
and without a sufficient reason, with him who had murdered his
father.

VII.II.45

If the first of those two paradoxes should appear
sufficiently violent, the second is evidently too absurd to
deserve any serious consideration. It is, indeed, so very absurd
that one can scarce help suspecting that it must have been in
some measure misunderstood or misrepresented. At any rate, I
cannot allow myself to believe that such men as Zeno or
Cleanthes, men, it is said, of the most simple as well as of the
most sublime eloquence, could be the authors, either of these, or
of the greater part of the other Stoical paradoxes, which are in
general mere impertinent quibbles, and do so little honour to
their system that I shall give no further account of them. I am
disposed to impute them rather to Chrysippus, the disciple and
follower, indeed, of Zeno and Cleanthes, but who, from all that
has been delivered down to us concerning him, seems to have been
a mere dialectical pedant, without taste or elegance of any kind.
He may have been the first who reduced their doctrines into a
scholastic or technical system of artificial definitions,
divisions, and subdivisions; one of the most effectual
expedients, perhaps, for extinguishing whatever degree of good
sense there may be in any moral or metaphysical doctrine. Such a
man may very easily be supposed to have understood too literally
some animated expressions of his masters in describing the
happiness of the man of perfect virtue, and the unhappiness of
whoever fell short of that character.

VII.II.46

The Stoics in general seem to have admitted that there might
be a degree of proficiency in those who had not advanced to
perfect virtue and happiness. They distributed those proficients
into different classes, according to the degree of their
advancement; and they called the imperfect virtues which they
supposed them capable of exercising, not rectitudes, but
proprieties, fitnesses, decent and becoming actions, for which a
plausible or probable reason could be assigned, what Cicero
expresses by the Latin word officia, and Seneca, I think more
exactly, by that of convenientia. The doctrine of those
imperfect, but attainable virtues, seems to have constituted what
we may call the practical morality of the Stoics. It is the
subject of Cicero's Offices; and is said to have been that of
another book written by Marcus Brutus, but which is now lost.

VII.II.47

The plan and system which Nature has sketched out for our
conduct, seems to be altogether different from that of the
Stoical philosophy.

VII.II.48

By Nature the events which immediately affect that little
department in which we ourselves have some little management and
direction, which immediately affect ourselves, our friends, our
country, are the events which interest us the most, and which
chiefly excite our desires and aversions, our hopes and fears,
our joys and sorrows. Should those passions be, what they are
very apt to be, too vehement, Nature has provided a proper remedy
and correction. The real or even the imaginary presence of the
impartial spectator, the authority of the man within the breast,
is always at hand to overawe them into the proper tone and temper
of moderation.

VII.II.49

If, notwithstanding our most faithful exertions, all the
events which can affect this little department, should turn out
the most unfortunate and disastrous, Nature has by no means left
us without consolation. That consolation may be drawn, not only
from the complete approbation of the man within the breast, but,
if possible, from a still nobler and more generous principle,
from a firm reliance upon, and a reverential submission to, that
benevolent wisdom which directs all the events of human life, and
which, we may be assured, would never have suffered those
misfortunes to happen, had they not been indispensably necessary
for the good of the whole.

VII.II.50

Nature has not prescribed to us this sublime contemplation as
the great business and occupation of our lives. She only points
it out to us as the consolation of our misfortunes. The Stoical
philosophy prescribes it as the great business and occupation of
our lives. That philosophy teaches us to interest ourselves
earnestly and anxiously in no events, external to the good order
of our own minds, to the propriety of our own choosing and
rejecting, except in those which concern a department where we
neither have nor ought to have any sort of management or
direction, the department of the great Superintendant of the
universe. By the perfect apathy which it prescribes to us, by
endeavouring, not merely to moderate, but to eradicate all our
private, partial, and selfish affections, by suffering us to feel
for whatever can befall ourselves, our friends, our country, not
even the sympathetic and reduced passions of the impartial
spectator, it endeavours to render us altogether indifferent and
unconcerned in the success or miscarriage of every thing which
Nature has prescribed to us as the proper business and occupation
of our lives.

VII.II.51

The reasonings of philosophy, it may be said, though they may
confound and perplex the understanding, can never break down the
necessary connection which Nature has established between causes
and their effects. The causes which naturally excite our desires
and aversions, our hopes and fears, our joys and sorrows, would
no doubt, notwithstanding all the reasonings of Stoicism, produce
upon each individual, according to the degree of his actual
sensibility, their proper and necessary effects. The judgments of
the man within the breast, however, might be a good deal affected
by those reasonings, and that great inmate might be taught by
them to attempt to overawe all our private, partial, and selfish
affections into a more or less perfect tranquillity. To direct
the judgments of this inmate is the great purpose of all systems
of morality. That the Stoical philosophy had very great influence
upon the character and conduct of its followers, cannot be
doubted; and that though it might sometimes incite them to
unnecessary violence, its general tendency was to animate them to
actions of the most heroic magnanimity and most extensive
benevolence.

VII.II.52

IV. Besides these ancient, there are some modern systems,
according to which virtue consists in propriety; or in the
suitableness of the affection from which we act, to the cause or
object which excites it. The system of Dr. Clark, which places
virtue in acting according to the relations of things, in
regulating our conduct according to the fitness or incongruity
which there may be in the application of certain actions to
certain things, or to certain relations: that of Mr. Woollaston,
which places it in acting according to the truth of things,
according to their proper nature and essence, or in treating them
as what they really are, and not as what they are not: that of my
Lord Shaftesbury, which places it in maintaining a proper balance
of the affections, and in allowing no passion to go beyond its
proper sphere; are all of them more or less inaccurate
descriptions of the same fundamental idea.

VII.II.53

None of those systems either give, or even pretend to give,
any precise or distinct measure by which this fitness or
propriety of affection can be ascertained or judged of. That
precise and distinct measure can be found nowhere but in the
sympathetic feelings of the impartial and well-informed
spectator.

VII.II.54

The description of virtue, besides, which is either given, or
at least meant and intended to be given in each of those systems,
for some of the modern authors are not very fortunate in their
manner of expressing themselves, is no doubt quite just, so far
as it goes. There is no virtue without propriety, and wherever
there is propriety some degree of approbation is due. But still
this description is imperfect. For though propriety is an
essential ingredient in every virtuous action, it is not always
the sole ingredient. Beneficent actions have in them another
quality by which they appear not only to deserve approbation but
recompense. None of those systems account either easily or
sufficiently for that superior degree of esteem which seems due
to such actions, or for that diversity of sentiment which they
naturally excite. Neither is the description of vice more
complete. For, in the same manner, though impropriety is a
necessary ingredient in every vicious action, it is not always
the sole ingredient; and there is often the highest degree of
absurdity and impropriety in very harmless and insignificant
actions. Deliberate actions, of a pernicious tendency to those we
live with, have, besides their impropriety, a peculiar quality of
their own by which they appear to deserve, not only
disapprobation, but punishment; and to be the objects, not of
dislike merely, but of resentment and revenge: and none of those
systems easily and sufficiently account for that superior degree
of detestation which we feel for such actions.

Chap. II
Of those Systems which make Virtue consist in Prudence

VII.II.55

The most ancient of those systems which make virtue consist
in prudence, and of which any considerable remains have come down
to us, is that of Epicurus, who is said, however, to have
borrowed all the leading principles of his philosophy from some
of those who had gone before him, particularly from Aristippus;
though it is very probable, notwithstanding this allegation of
his enemies, that at least his manner of applying those
principles was altogether his own.

VII.II.56

According to Epicurus,*18 bodily pleasure and pain were the
sole ultimate objects of natural desire and aversion. That they
were always the natural objects of those passions, he thought
required no proof. Pleasure might, indeed, appear sometimes to be
avoided; not, however, because it was pleasure, but because, by
the enjoyment of it, we should either forfeit some greater
pleasure, or expose ourselves to some pain that was more to be
avoided than this pleasure was to be desired. Pain, in the same
manner, might appear sometimes to be eligible; not, however,
because it was pain, but because by enduring it we might either
avoid a still greater pain, or acquire some pleasure of much more
importance. That bodily pain and pleasure, therefore, were always
the natural objects of desire and aversion, was, he thought,
abundantly evident. Nor was it less so, he imagined, that they
were the sole ultimate objects of those passions. Whatever else
was either desired or avoided, was so, according to him, upon
account of its tendency to produce one or other of those
sensations. The tendency to procure pleasure rendered power and
riches desirable, as the contrary tendency to produce pain made
poverty and insignificancy the objects of aversion. Honour and
reputation were valued, because the esteem and love of those we
live with were of the greatest consequence both to procure
pleasure and to defend us from pain. Ignominy and bad fame, on
the contrary, were to be avoided, because the hatred, contempt
and resentment of those we lived with, destroyed all security,
and necessarily exposed us to the greatest bodily evils.

VII.II.57

All the pleasures and pains of the mind were, according to
Epicurus, ultimately derived from those of the body. The mind was
happy when it thought of the past pleasures of the body, and
hoped for others to come: and it was miserable when it thought of
the pains which the body had formerly endured, and dreaded the
same or greater thereafter.

VII.II.58

But the pleasures and pains of the mind, though ultimately
derived from those of the body, were vastly greater than their
originals. The body felt only the sensation of the present
instant, whereas the mind felt also the past and the future, the
one by remembrance, the other by anticipation, and consequently
both suffered and enjoyed much more. When we are under the
greatest bodily pain, he observed, we shall always find, if we
attend to it, that it is not the suffering of the present instant
which chiefly torments us, but either the agonizing remembrance
of the past, or the yet more horrible dread of the future. The
pain of each instant, considered by itself, and cut off from all
that goes before and all that comes after it, is a trifle, not
worth the regarding. Yet this is all which the body can ever be
said to suffer. In the same manner, when we enjoy the greatest
pleasure, we shall always find that the bodily sensation, the
sensation of the present instant, makes but a small part of our
happiness, that our enjoyment chiefly arises either from the
cheerful recollection of the past, or the still more joyous
anticipation of the future, and that the mind always contributes
by much the largest share of the entertainment.

VII.II.59

Since our happiness and misery, therefore, depended chiefly
on the mind, if this part of our nature was well disposed, if our
thoughts and opinions were as they should be, it was of little
importance in what manner our body was affected. Though under
great bodily pain, we might still enjoy a considerable share of
happiness, if our reason and judgment maintained their
superiority. We might entertain ourselves with the remembrance of
past, and with the hopes of future pleasure; we might soften the
rigour of our pains, by recollecting what it was which, even in
this situation, we were under any necessity of suffering. That
this was merely the bodily sensation, the pain of the present
instant, which by itself could never be very great. That whatever
agony we suffered from the dread of its continuance, was the
effect of an opinion of the mind, which might be corrected by
juster sentiments; by considering that, if our pains were
violent, they would probably be of short duration; and that if
they were of long continuance, they would probably be moderate,
and admit of many intervals of ease; and that, at any rate, death
was always at hand and within call to deliver us, which as,
according to him, it put an end to all sensation, either of pain
or pleasure, could not be regarded as an evil. When we are, said
he, death is not; and when death is, we are not; death therefore
can be nothing to us.

VII.II.60

If the actual sensation of positive pain was in itself so
little to be feared, that of pleasure was still less to be
desired. Naturally the sensation of pleasure was much less
pungent than that of pain. If, therefore, this last could take so
very little from the happiness of a well-disposed mind, the other
could add scarce any thing to it. When the body was free from
pain and the mind from fear and anxiety, the superadded sensation
of bodily pleasure could be of very little importance; and though
it might diversify could not properly be said to increase the
happiness of the situation.

VII.II.61

In ease of body, therefore, and in security or tranquillity
of mind, consisted, according to Epicurus, the most perfect state
of human nature, the most complete happiness which man was
capable of enjoying. To obtain this great end of natural desire
was the sole object of all the virtues, which, according to him,
were not desirable upon their own account, but upon account of
their tendency to bring about this situation.

VII.II.62

Prudence, for example, though, according to this philosophy,
the source and principle of all the virtues, was not desirable
upon its own account. That careful and laborious and circumspect
state of mind, ever watchful and ever attentive to the most
distant consequences of every action. could not be a thing
pleasant or agreeable for its own sake, but upon account of its
tendency to procure the greatest goods and to keep off the
greatest evils.

VII.II.63

To abstain from pleasure too, to curb and restrain our
natural passions for enjoyment, which was the office of
temperance, could never be desirable for its own sake. The whole
value of this virtue arose from its utility, from its enabling us
to postpone the present enjoyment for the sake of a greater to
come, or to avoid a greater pain that might ensue from it.
Temperance, in short, was nothing but prudence with regard to
pleasure.

VII.II.64

To support labour, to endure pain, to be exposed to danger or
to death, the situations which fortitude would often lead us
into, were surely still less the objects of natural desire. They
were chosen only to avoid greater evils. We submitted to labour,
in order to avoid the greater shame and pain of poverty, and we
exposed ourselves to danger and to death in defence of our
liberty and property, the means and instruments of pleasure and
happiness; or in defence of our country, in the safety of which
our own was necessarily comprehended. Fortitude enabled us to do
all this cheerfully, as the best which, in our present situation,
could possibly be done, and was in reality no more than prudence,
good judgment, and presence of mind in properly appreciating
pain, labour, and danger, always choosing the less in order to
avoid the greater.

VII.II.65

It is the same case with justice. To abstain from what is
another's was not desirable on its own account, and it could not
surely be better for you, that I should possess what is my own,
than that you should possess it. You ought, however, to abstain
from whatever belongs to me, because by doing otherwise you will
provoke the resentment and indication of mankind. The security
and tranquillity of your mind will be entirely destroyed. You
will be filled with fear and consternation at the thought of that
punishment which you will imagine that men are at all times ready
to inflict upon you, and from which no power, no art, no
concealment, will ever, in your own fancy, be sufficient to
protect you. That other species of justice which. consists in
doing proper good offices to different persons, according to the
various relations of neighbours, kinsmen, friends, benefactors,
superiors, or equals, which they may stand in to us, is
recommended by the same reasons. To act properly in all these
different relations procures us the esteem and love of those we
live with; as to do otherwise excites their contempt and hatred.
By the one we naturally secure, by the other we necessarily
endanger our own ease and tranquillity, the great and ultimate
objects of all our desires. The whole virtue of justice,
therefore, the most important of all the virtues, is no more than
discreet and prudent conduct with regard to our neighbours.

VII.II.66

Such is the doctrine of Epicurus concerning the nature of
virtue. It may seem extraordinary that this philosopher, who is
described as a person of the most amiable manners, should never
have observed, that, whatever may be the tendency of those
virtues, or of the contrary vices, with regard to our bodily ease
and security, the sentiments which they naturally excite in
others are the objects of a much more passionate desire or
aversion than all their other consequences; that to be amiable,
to be respectable, to be the proper object of esteem, is by every
well-disposed mind more valued than all the ease and security
which love, respect, and esteem can procure us; that, on the
contrary, to be odious, to be contemptible, to be the proper
object of indignation, is more dreadful than all that we can
suffer in our body from hatred, contempt, or indignation; and
that consequently our desire of the one character, and our
aversion to the other, cannot arise from any regard to the
effects which either of them is likely to produce upon the body.

VII.II.67

This system is, no doubt, altogether inconsistent with that
which I have been endeavouring to establish. It is not difficult,
however, to discover from what phasis, if I may say so, from what
particular view or aspect of nature, this account of things
derives its probability. By the wise contrivance of the Author of
nature, virtue is upon all ordinary occasions, even with regard
to this life, real wisdom, and the surest and readiest means of
obtaining both safety and advantage. Our success or
disappointment in our undertakings must very much depend upon the
good or bad opinion which is commonly entertained of us, and upon
the general disposition of those we live with, either to assist
or to oppose us. But the best, the surest, the easiest, and the
readiest way of obtaining the advantageous and of avoiding the
unfavourable judgments of others, is undoubtedly to render
ourselves the proper objects of the former and not of the latter.
'Do you desire,' said Socrates, 'the reputation of a good
musician? The only sure way of obtaining it, is to become a good
musician. Would you desire in the same manner to be thought
capable of serving your country either as a general or as a
statesman? The best way in this case too is really to acquire the
art and experience of war and government, and to become really
fit to be a general or a statesman. And in the same manner if you
would be reckoned sober, temperate, just, and equitable, the best
way of acquiring this reputation is to become sober, temperate,
just, and equitable. If you can really render yourself amiable,
respectable, and the proper object of esteem, there is no fear of
your not soon acquiring the love, the respect, and esteem of
those you live with.' Since the practice of virtue, therefore, is
in general so advantageous, and that of vice so contrary to our
interest, the consideration of those opposite tendencies
undoubtedly stamps an additional beauty and propriety upon the
one, and a new deformity and impropriety upon the other.
Temperance, magnanimity, justice, and beneficence, come thus to
be approved of, not only under their proper characters, but under
the additional character of the highest wisDom and most real
prudence. And in the same manner, the contrary vices of
intemperance, pusillanimity, injustice, and either malevolence or
sordid selfishness, come to be disapproved of, not only under
their proper characters, but under the additional character of
the most short-sighted folly and weakness. Epicurus appears in
every virtue to have attended to this species of propriety only.
It is that which is most apt to occur to those who are
endeavouring to persuade others to regularity of conduct. When
men by their practice, and perhaps too by their maxims,
manifestly show that the natural beauty of virtue is not like to
have much effect upon them, how is it possible to move them but
by representing the folly of their conduct, and how much they
themselves are in the end likely to suffer by it?

VII.II.68

By running up all the different virtues too to this one
species of propriety, Epicurus indulged a propensity, which is
natural to all men, but which philosophers in particular are apt
to cultivate with a peculiar fondness, as the great means of
displaying their ingenuity, the propensity to account for all
appearances from as few principles as possible. And he, no doubt,
indulged this propensity still further, when he referred all the
primary objects of natural desire and aversion to the pleasures
and pains of the body. The great patron of the atomical
philosophy, who took so much pleasure in deducing all the powers
and qualities of bodies from the most obvious and familiar, the
figure, motion, and arrangement of the small parts of matter,
felt no doubt a similar satisfaction, when he accounted, in the
same manner, for all the sentiments and passions of the mind from
those which are most obvious and familiar.

VII.II.69

The system of Epicurus agreed with those of Plato, Aristotle,
and Zeno, in making virtue consist in acting in the most suitable
manner to obtain the*19 primary objects of natural desire. It
differed from all of them in two other respects; first, in the
account which it gave of those primary objects of natural desire;
and secondly, in the account which it gave of the excellence of
virtue, or of the reason why that quality ought to be esteemed.

VII.II.70

The primary objects of natural desire consisted, according to
Epicurus, in bodily pleasure and pain, and in nothing else:
whereas, according to the other three philosophers, there were
many other objects, such as knowledge, such as the happiness of
our relations, of our friends, of our country, which were
ultimately desirable for their own sakes.

VII.II.71

Virtue too, according to Epicurus, did not deserve to be
pursued for its own sake, nor was itself one of the ultimate
objects of natural appetite, but was eligible only upon account
of its tendency to prevent pain and to procure ease and pleasure.
In the opinion of the other three, on the contrary, it was
desirable, not merely as the means of procuring the other primary
objects of natural desire, but as something which was in itself
more valuable than them all. Man, they thought, being born for
action, his happiness must consist, not merely in the
agreeableness of his passive sensations, but also in the
propriety of his active exertions.

Chap. III
Of those Systems which make Virtue consist in Benevolence

VII.II.72

The system which makes virtue consist in benevolence, though
I think not so ancient as all of those which I have already given
an account of, is, however, of very great antiquity. It seems to
have been the doctrine of the greater part of those philosophers
who, about and after the age of Augustus, called themselves
Eclectics, who pretended to follow chiefly the opinions of Plato
and Pythagoras, and who upon that account are commonly known by
the name of the later Platonists.

VII.II.73

In the divine nature, according to these authors, benevolence
or love was the sole principle of action, and directed the
exertion of all the other attributes. The wisdom of the Deity was
employed in finding out the means for bringing about those ends
which his goodness suggested, as his infinite power was exerted
to execute them. Benevolence, however, was still the supreme and
governing attribute, to which the others were subservient, and
from which the whole excellency, or the whole morality, if I may
be allowed such an expression, of the divine operations, was
ultimately derived. The whole perfection and virtue of the human
mind consisted in some resemblance or participation of the divine
perfections, and, consequently, in being filled with the same
principle of benevolence and love which influenced all the
actions of the Deity. The actions of men which flowed from this
motive were alone truly praise-worthy, or could claim any merit
in the sight of the Deity. It was by actions of charity and love
only that we could imitate, as became us, the conduct of God,
that we could express our humble and devout admiration of his
infinite perfections, that by fostering in our own minds the same
divine principle, we could bring our own affections to a greater
resemblance with his holy attributes, and thereby become more
proper objects of his love and esteem; till at last we arrived at
that immediate converse and communication with the Deity to which
it was the great object of this philosophy to raise us.

VII.II.74

This system, as it was much esteemed by many ancient fathers
of the Christian church, so after the Reformation it was adopted
by several divines of the most eminent piety and learning and of
the most amiable manners; particularly, by Dr. Ralph Cudworth, by
Dr. Henry More, and by Mr. John Smith of Cambridge. But of all the
patrons of this system, ancient or modern, the late Dr. Hutcheson
was undoubtedly, beyond all comparison, the most acute, the most
distinct, the most philosophical, and what is of the greatest
consequence of all, the soberest and most judicious.

VII.II.75

That virtue consists in benevolence is a notion supported by
many appearances in human nature. It has been observed already,
that proper benevolence is the most graceful and agreeable of all
the affections, that it is recommended to us by a double
sympathy, that as its tendency is necessarily beneficent, it is
the proper object of gratitude and reward, and that upon all
these accounts it appears to our natural sentiments to possess a
merit superior to any other. It has been observed too, that even
the weaknesses of benevolence are not very disagreeable to us,
whereas those of every other passion are always extremely
disgusting. Who does not abhor excessive malice, excessive
selfishness, or excessive resentment? But the most excessive
indulgence even of partial friendship is not so offensive. It is
the benevolent passions only which can exert themselves without
any regard or attention to propriety, and yet retain something
about them which is engaging. There is something pleasing even in
mere instinctive good-will which goes on to do good offices
without once reflecting whether by this conduct it is the proper
object either of blame or approbation. It is not so with the
other passions. The moment they are deserted, the moment they are
unaccompanied by the sense of propriety, they cease to be
agreeable.

VII.II.76

As benevolence bestows upon those actions which proceed from
it, a beauty superior to all others, so the want of it, and much
more the contrary inclination, communicates a peculiar deformity
to whatever evidences such a disposition. Pernicious actions are
often punishable for no other reason than because they shew a
want of sufficient attention to the happiness of our neighbour.

VII.II.77

Besides all this, Dr. Hutcheson*20 observed that whenever in
any action, supposed to proceed from benevolent affections, some
other motive had been discovered, our sense of the merit of this
action was just so far diminished as this motive was believed to
have influenced it. If an action, supposed to proceed from
gratitude, should be discovered to have arisen from an
expectation of some new favour, or if what was apprehended to
proceed from public spirit, should be found out to have taken its
origin from the hope of a pecuniary reward, such a discovery
would entirely destroy all notion of merit or praise-worthiness
in either of these actions. Since, therefore, the mixture of any
selfish motive, like that of a baser alloy, diminished or took
away altogether the merit which would otherwise have belonged to
any action, it was evident, he imagined, that virtue must consist
in pure and disinterested benevolence alone.

VII.II.78

When those actions, on the contrary, which are commonly
supposed to proceed from a selfish motive, are discovered to have
arisen from a benevolent one, it greatly enhances our sense of
their merit. If we believed of any person that he endeavoured to
advance his fortune from no other view but that of doing friendly
offices, and of making proper returns to his benefactors, we
should only love and esteem him the more. And this observation
seemed still more to confirm the conclusion, that it was
benevolence only which could stamp upon any action the character
of virtue.

VII.II.79

Last of all, what, he imagined, was an evident proof of the
justness of this account of virtue, in all the disputes of
casuists concerning the rectitude of conduct, the public good, he
observed, was the standard to which they constantly referred;
thereby universally acknowledging that whatever tended to promote
the happiness of mankind was right and laudable and virtuous, and
the contrary, wrong, blamable, and vicious. In the late debates
about passive obeDience and the right of resistance, the sole
point in controversy among men of sense was, whether universal
submission would probably be attended with greater evils than
temporary insurrections when privileges were invaded. Whether
what, upon the whole, tended most to the happiness of mankind,
was not also morally good, was never once, he said, made a
question.

VII.II.80

Since benevolence, therefore, was the only motive which could
bestow upon any action the character of virtue, the greater the
benevolence which was evidenced by any action, the greater the
praise which must belong to it.

VII.II.81

Those actions which aimed at the happiness of a great
community, as they demonstrated a more enlarged benevolence than
those which aimed only at that of a smaller system, so were they,
likewise, proportionally the more virtuous. The most virtuous of
all affections, therefore, was that which embraced as its object
the happiness of all intelligent beings. The least virtuous, on
the contrary, of those to which the character of virtue could in
any respect belong, was that which aimed no further than at the
happiness of an individual, such as a son, a brother, a friend.

VII.II.82

In directing all our actions to promote the greatest possible
good, in submitting all inferior affections to the desire of the
general happiness of mankind, in regarding one's self but as one
of the many, whose prosperity was to be pursued no further than
it was consistent with, or conducive to that of the whole,
consisted the perfection of virtue.

VII.II.83

Self-love was a principle which could never be virtuous in
any degree or in any direction. It was vicious whenever it
obstructed the general good. When it had no other effect than to
make the individual take care of his own happiness, it was merely
innocent, and though it deserved no praise, neither ought it to
incur any blame. Those benevolent actions which were performed,
notwithstanding some strong motive from self-interest, were the
more virtuous upon that account. They demonstrated the strength
and vigour of the benevolent principle.

VII.II.84

Dr. Hutcheson*21 was so far from allowing self-love to be in
any case a motive of virtuous actions, that even a regard to the
pleasure of self-approbation, to the comfortable applause of our
own consciences, according to him, diminished the merit of a
benevolent action. This was a selfish motive, he thought, which,
so far as it contributed to any action, demonstrated the weakness
of that pure and disinterested benevolence which could alone
stamp upon the conduct of man the character of virtue. In the
common judgments of mankind, however, this regard to the
approbation of our own minds is so far from being considered as
what can in any respect diminish the virtue of any action, that
it is rather looked upon as the sole motive which deserves the
appellation of virtuous.

VII.II.85

Such is the account given of the nature of virtue in this
amiable system, a system which has a peculiar tendency to nourish
and support in the human heart the noblest and the most agreeable
of all affections, and not only to check the injustice of
self-love, but in some measure to discourage that principle
altogether, by representing it as what could never reflect any
honour upon those who were influenced by it.

VII.II.86

As some of the other systems which I have already given an
account of, do not sufficiently explain from whence arises the
peculiar excellency of the supreme virtue of beneficence, so this
system seems to have the contrary defect, of not sufficiently
explaining from whence arises our approbation of the inferior
virtues of prudence, vigilance, circumspection, temperance,
constancy, firmness. The view and aim of our affections, the
beneficent and hurtful effects which they tend to produce, are
the only qualities at all attended to in this system. Their
propriety and impropriety, their suitableness and unsuitableness,
to the cause which excites them, are disregarded altogether.

VII.II.87

Regard to our own private happiness and interest, too, appear
upon many occasions very laudable principles of action. The
habits of oeconomy, industry, discretion, attention, and
application of thought, are generally supposed to be cultivated
from self-interested motives, and at the same time are
apprehended to be very praise-worthy qualities, which deserve the
esteem and approbation of every body. The mixture of a selfish
motive, it is true, seems often to sully the beauty of those
actions which ought to arise from a benevolent affection. The
cause of this, however, is not that self-love can never be the
motive of a virtuous action, but that the benevolent principle
appears in this particular case to want its due degree of
strength, and to be altogether unsuitable to its object. The
character, therefore, seems evidently imperfect, and upon the
whole to deserve blame rather than praise. The mixture of a
benevolent motive in an action to which self-love alone ought to
be sufficient to prompt us, is not so apt indeed to diminish our
sense of its propriety, or of the virtue of the person who
performs it. We are not ready to suspect any person of being
defective in selfishness. This is by no means the weak side of
human nature, or the failing of which we are apt to be
suspicious. If we could really believe, however, of any man,
that, was it not from a regard to his family and friends, he
would not take that proper care of his health, his life, or his
fortune, to which self-preservation alone ought to be sufficient
to prompt him, it would undoubtedly be a failing, though one of
those amiable failings, which render a person rather the object
of pity than of contempt or hatred. It would still, however,
somewhat diminish the dignity and respectableness of his
character. Carelessness and want of oeconomy are universally
disapproved of, not, however, as proceeding from a want of
benevolence, but from a want of the proper attention to the
objects of self-interest.

VII.II.88

Though the standard by which casuists frequently determine
what is right or wrong in human conduct, be its tendency to the
welfare or disorder of society, it does not follow that a regard
to the welfare of society should be the sole virtuous motive of
action, but only that, in any competition, it ought to cast the
balance against all other motives.

VII.II.89

Benevolence may, perhaps, be the sole principle of action in
the Deity, and there are several, not improbable, arguments which
tend to persuade us that it is so. It is not easy to conceive
what other motive an independent and all-perfect Being, who
stands in need of nothing external, and whose happiness is
complete in himself, can act from. But whatever may be the case
with the Deity, so imperfect a creature as man, the support of
whose existence requires so many things external to him, must
often act from many other motives. The condition of human nature
were peculiarly hard, if those affections, which, by the very
nature of our being, ought frequently to influence our conduct,
could upon no occasion appear virtuous, or deserve esteem and
commendation from any body.

VII.II.90

Those three systems, that which places virtue in propriety,
that which places it in prudence, and that which makes it consist
in benevolence, are the principal accounts which have been given
of the nature of virtue. To one or other of them, all the other
descriptions of virtue, how different soever they may appear, are
easily reducible.

VII.II.91

That system which places virtue in obedience to the will of
the Deity, may be counted either among those which make it
consist in prudence, or among those which make it consist in
propriety. When it is asked, why we ought to obey the will of the
Deity, this question, which would be impious and absurd in the
highest degree, if asked from any doubt that we ought to obey
him, can admit but of two different answers. It must either be
said that we ought to obey the will of the Deity because he is a
Being of infinite power, who will reward us eternally if we do
so, and punish us eternally if we do otherwise: or it must be
said, that independent of any regard to our own happiness, or to
rewards and punishments of any kind, there is a congruity and
fitness that a creature should obey its creator, that a limited
and imperfect being should submit to one of infinite and
incomprehensible perfections. Besides one or other of these two,
it is impossible to conceive that any other answer can be given
to this question. If the first answer be the proper one, virtue
consists in prudence, or in the proper pursuit of our own final
interest and happiness; since it is upon this account that we are
obliged to obey the will of the Deity. If the second answer be
the proper one, virtue must consist in propriety, since the
ground of our obligation to obedience is the suitableness or
congruity of the sentiments of humility and submission to the
superiority of the object which excites them.

VII.II.92

That system which places virtue in utility, coincides too
with that which makes it consist in propriety. According to this
system, all those qualities of the mind which are agreeable or
advantageous, either to the person himself or to others, are
approved of as virtuous, and the contrary disapproved of as
vicious. But the agreeableness or utility of any affection
depends upon the degree which it is allowed to subsist in. Every
affection is useful when it is confined to a certain degree of
moderation; and every affection is disadvantageous when it
exceeds the proper bounds. According to this system therefore,
virtue consists not in any one affection, but in the proper
degree of all the affections. The only difference between it and
that which I have been endeavouring to establish, is, that it
makes utility, and not sympathy, or the correspondent affection
of the spectator, the natural and original measure of this proper
degree.

Chap. IV
Of licentious Systems

VII.II.93

All those systems, which I have hitherto given an account of,
suppose that there is a real and essential distinction between
vice and virtue, whatever these qualities may consist in. There
is a real and essential difference between the propriety and
impropriety of any affection, between benevolence and any other
principle of action, between real prudence and shortsighted folly
or precipitate rashness. In the main too all of them contribute
to encourage the praise-worthy, and to discourage the blamable
disposition.

VII.II.94

It may be true, perhaps, of some of them, that they tend, in
some measure, to break the balance of the affections, and to give
the mind a particular bias to some principles of action, beyond
the proportion that is due to them. The ancient systems, which
place virtue in propriety, seem chiefly to recommend the great,
the awful, and the respectable virtues, the virtues of
self-government and self-command; fortitude, magnanimity,
independency upon fortune, the contempt of all outward accidents,
of pain, poverty, exile, and death. It is in these great
exertions that the noblest propriety of conduct is displayed. The
soft, the amiable, the gentle virtues, all the virtues of
indulgent humanity are, in comparison, but little insisted upon,
and seem, on the contrary, by the Stoics in particular, to have
been often regarded as mere weaknesses which it behoved a wise
man not to harbour in his breast.

VII.II.95

The benevolent system, on the other hand, while it fosters
and encourages all those milder virtues in the highest degree,
seems entirely to neglect the more awful and respectable
qualities of the mind. It even denies them the appellation of
virtues. It calls them moral abilities, and treats them as
qualities which do not deserve the same sort of esteem and
approbation, that is due to what is properly denominated virtue.
All those principles of action which aim only at our own
interest, it treats, if that be possible, still worse. So far
from having any merit of their own, they diminish, it pretends,
the merit of benevolence, when they co-operate with it: and
prudence, it is asserted, when employed only in promoting private
interest, can never even be imagined a virtue.

VII.II.96

That system, again, which makes virtue consist in prudence
only, while it gives the highest encouragement to the habits of
caution, vigilance, sobriety, and judicious moderation, seems to
degrade equally both the amiable and respectable virtues, and to
strip the former of all their beauty, and the latter of all their
grandeur.

VII.II.97

But notwithstanding these defects, the general tendency of
each of those three systems is to encourage the best and most
laudable habits of the human mind: and it were well for society,
if, either mankind in general, or even those few who pretend to
live according to any philosophical rule, were to regulate their
conduct by the precepts of any one of them. We may learn from
each of them something that is both valuable and peculiar. If it
was possible, by precept and exhortation, to inspire the mind
with fortitude and magnanimity, the ancient systems of propriety
would seem sufficient to do this. Or if it was possible, by the
same means, to soften it into humanity, and to awaken the
affections of kindness and general love towards those we live
with, some of the pictures with which the benevolent system
presents us, might seem capable of producing this effect. We may
learn from the system of Epicurus, though undoubtedly the most
imperfect of all the three, how much the practice of both the
amiable and respectable virtues is conducive to our own interest,
to our own ease and safety and quiet even in this life. As
Epicurus placed happiness in the attainment of ease and security,
he exerted himself in a particular manner to show that virtue
was, not merely the best and the surest, but the only means of
acquiring those invaluable possessions. The good effects of
virtue, upon our inward tranquillity and peace of mind, are what
other philosophers have chiefly celebrated. Epicurus, without
neglecting this topic, has chiefly insisted upon the influence of
that amiable quality on our outward prosperity and safety. It was
upon this account that his writings were so much studied in the
ancient world by men of all different philosophical parties. It
is from him that Cicero, the great enemy of the Epicurean system,
borrows his most agreeable proofs that virtue alone is sufficient
to secure happiness. Seneca, though a Stoic, the sect most
opposite to that of Epicurus, yet quotes this philosopher more
frequently than any other.

VII.II.98

There is, however, another system which seems to take away
altogether the distinction between vice and virtue, and of which
the tendency is, upon that account, wholly pernicious: I mean the
system of Dr. Mandeville. Though the notions of this author are in
almost every respect erroneous, there are, however, some
appearances in human nature, which, when viewed in a certain
manner, seem at first sight to favour them. These, described and
exaggerated by the lively and humorous, though coarse and rustic
eloquence of Dr. Mandeville, have thrown upon his doctrines an air
of truth and probability which is very apt to impose upon the
unskilful.

VII.II.99

Dr. Mandeville considers whatever is done from a sense of
propriety, from a regard to what is commendable and
praise-worthy, as being done from a love of praise and
commendation, or as he calls it from vanity. Man, he observes, is
naturally much more interested in his own happiness than in that
of others, and it is impossible that in his heart he can ever
really prefer their prosperity to his own. Whenever he appears to
do so, we may be assured that he imposes upon us, and that he is
then acting from the same selfish motives as at all other times.
Among his other selfish passions, vanity is one of the strongest,
and he is always easily flattered and greatly delighted with the
applauses of those about him. When he appears to sacrifice his
own interest to that of his companions, he knows that his conduct
will be highly agreeable to their self-love, and that they will
not fail to express their satisfaction by bestowing upon him the
most extravagant praises. The pleasure which he expects from
this, over-balances, in his opinion, the interest which he
abandons in order to procure it. His conduct, therefore, upon
this occasion, is in reality just as selfish, and arises from
just as mean a motive, as upon any other. He is flattered,
however, and he flatters himself, with the belief that it is
entirely disinterested; since, unless this was supposed, it would
not seem to merit any commendation either in his own eyes or in
those of others. All public spirit, therefore, all preference of
public to private interest, is, according to him, a mere cheat
and imposition upon mankind; and that human virtue which is so
much boasted of, and which is the occasion of so much emulation
among men, is the mere offspring of flattery begot upon pride.

VII.II.100

Whether the most generous and public-spirited actions may
not, in some sense, be regarded as proceeding from self-love, I
shall not at present examine. The decision of this question is
not, I apprehend, of any importance towards establishing the
reality of virtue, since self-love may frequently be a virtuous
motive of action. I shall only endeavour to show that the desire
of doing what is honourable and noble, of rendering ourselves the
proper objects of esteem and approbation, cannot with any
propriety be called vanity. Even the love of well-grounded fame
and reputation, the desire of acquiring esteem by what is really
estimable, does not deserve that name. The first is the love of
virtue, the noblest and the best passion in human nature. The
second is the love of true glory, a passion inferior no doubt to
the former, but which in dignity appears to come immediately
after it. He is guilty of vanity who desires praise for qualities
which are either not praise-worthy in any degree, or not in that
degree in which he expects to be praised for them who sets his
character upon the frivolous ornaments of dress and equipage, or
upon the equally frivolous accomplishments of ordinary behaviour.
He is guilty of vanity who desires praise for what indeed very
well deserves it, but what he perfectly knows does not belong to
him. The empty coxcomb who gives himself airs of importance which
he has no title to, the silly liar who assumes the merit of
adventures which never happened, the foolish plagiary who gives
himself out for the author of what he has no pretensions to, are
properly accused of this passion. He too is said to be guilty of
vanity who is not contented with the silent sentiments of esteem
and approbation, who seems to be fonder of their noisy
expressions and acclamations than of the sentiments themselves,
who is never satisfied but when his own praises are ringing in
his ears, and who solicits with the most anxious importunity all
external marks of respect, is fond of titles, of compliments, of
being visited, of being attended, of being taken notice of in
public places with the appearance of deference and attention.
This frivolous passion is altogether different from either of the
two former, and is the passion of the lowest and the least of
mankind, as they are of the noblest and the greatest.

VII.II.101

But though these three passions, the desire of rendering
ourselves the proper objects of honour and esteem; or of becoming
what is honourable and estimable; the desire of acquiring honour
and esteem by really deserving those sentiments; and the
frivolous desire of praise at any rate, are widely different;
though the two former are always approved of, while the latter
never fails to be despised; there is, however, a certain remote
affinity among them, which, exaggerated by the humorous and
diverting eloquence of this lively author, has enabled him to
impose upon his readers. There is an affinity between vanity and
the love of true glory, as both these passions aim at acquiring
esteem and approbation. But they are different in this, that the
one is a just, reasonable, and equitable passion, while the other
is unjust, absurd, and ridiculous. The man who desires esteem for
what is really estimable, desires nothing but what he is justly
entitled to, and what cannot be refused him without some sort of
injury. He, on the contrary, who desires it upon any other terms,
demands what he has no just claim to. The first is easily
satisfied, is not apt to be jealous or suspicious that we do not
esteem him enough, and is seldom solicitous about receiving many
external marks of our regard. The other, on the contrary, is
never to be satisfied, is full of jealousy and suspicion that we
do not esteem him so much as he desires, because he has some
secret consciousness that he desires more than he deserves. The
least neglect of ceremony, he considers as a mortal affront, and
as an expression of the most determined contempt. He is restless
and impatient, and perpetually afraid that we have lost all
respect for him, and is upon this account always anxious to
obtain new expressions of esteem, and cannot be kept in temper
but by continual attention and adulation.

VII.II.102

There is an affinity too between the desire of becoming what
is honourable and estimable, and the desire of honour and esteem,
between the love of virtue and the love of true glory. They
resemble one another not only in this respect, that both aim at
really being what is honourable and noble, but even in that
respect in which the love of true glory resembles what is
properly called vanity, some reference to the sentiments of
others. The man of the greatest magnanimity, who desires virtue
for its own sake, and is most indifferent about what actually are
the opinions of mankind with regard to him, is still, however,
delighted with the thoughts of what they should be, with the
consciousness that though he may neither be honoured nor
applauded, he is still the proper object of honour and applause,
and that if mankind were cool and candid and consistent with
themselves, and properly informed of the motives and
circumstances of his conduct, they would not fail to honour and
applaud him. Though he despises the opinions which are actually
entertained of him, he has the highest value for those which
ought to be entertained of him. That he might think himself
worthy of those honourable sentiments, and, whatever was the idea
which other men might conceive of his character, that when he
should put himself in their situation, and consider, not what
was, but what ought to be their opinion, he should always have
the highest idea of it himself, was the great and exalted motive
of his conduct. As even in the love of virtue, therefore, there
is still some reference, though not to what is, yet to what in
reason and propriety ought to be, the opinion of others, there is
even in this respect some affinity between it, and the love of
true glory. There is, however, at the same time, a very great
difference between them. The man who acts solely from a regard to
what is right and fit to be done, from a regard to what is the
proper object of esteem and approbation, though these sentiments
should never be bestowed upon him, acts from the most sublime and
godlike motive which human nature is even capable of conceiving.
The man, on the other hand, who while he desires to merit
approbation is at the same time anxious to obtain it, though he
too is laudable in the main, yet his motives have a greater
mixture of human infirmity. He is in danger of being mortified by
the ignorance and injustice of mankind, and his happiness is
exposed to the envy of his rivals and the folly of the public.
The happiness of the other, on the contrary, is altogether secure
and independent of fortune, and of the caprice of those he lives
with. The contempt and hatred which may be thrown upon him by the
ignorance of mankind, he considers as not belonging to him, and
is not at all mortified by it. Mankind despise and hate him from
a false notion of his character and conduct. If they knew him
better, they would esteem and love him. It is not him whom,
properly speaking, they hate and despise, but another person whom
they mistake him to be. Our friend, whom we should meet at a
masquerade in the garb of our enemy, would be more diverted than
mortified, if under that disguise we should vent our indignation
against him. Such are the sentiments of a man of real
magnanimity, when exposed to unjust censure. It seldom happens,
however, that human nature arrives at this degree of firmness.
Though none but the weakest and most worthless of mankind are
much delighted with false glory, yet, by a strange inconsistency,
false ignominy is often capable of mortifying those who appear
the most resolute and determined.

VII.II.103

Dr. Mandeville is not satisfied with representing the
frivolous motive of vanity, as the source of all those actions
which are commonly accounted virtuous. He endeavours to point out
the imperfection of human virtue in many other respects. In every
case, he pretends, it falls short of that complete self-denial
which it pretends to, and, instead of a conquest, is commonly no
more than a concealed indulgence of our passions. Wherever our
reserve with regard to pleasure falls short of the most ascetic
abstinence, he treats it as gross luxury and sensuality. Every
thing, according to him, is luxury which exceeds what is
absolutely necessary for the support of human nature, so that
there is vice even in the use of a clean shirt, or of a
convenient habitation. The indulgence of the inclination to sex,
in the most lawful union, he considers as the same sensuality
with the most hurtful gratification of that passion, and derides
that temperance and that chastity which can be practised at so
cheap a rate. The ingenious sophistry of his reasoning, is here,
as upon many other occasions, covered by the ambiguity of
language. There are some of our passions which have no other
names except those which mark the disagreeable and offensive
degree. The spectator is more apt to take notice of them in this
degree than in any other. When they shock his own sentiments,
when they give him some sort of antipathy and uneasiness, he is
necessarily obliged to attend to them, and is from thence
naturally led to give them a name. When they fall in with the
natural state of his own mind, he is very apt to overlook them
altogether, and either gives them no name at all, or, if he give
them any, it is one which marks rather the subjection and
restraint of the passion, than the degree which it still is
allowed to subsist in, after it is so subjected and restrained.
Thus the common names*22 of the love of pleasure, and of the
love of sex, denote a vicious and offensive degree of those
passions. The words temperance and chastity, on the other hand,
seem to mark rather the restraint and subjection which they are
kept under, than the degree which they are still allowed to
subsist in. When he can show, therefore, that they still subsist
in some degree, he imagines, he has entirely demolished the
reality of the virtues of temperance and chastity, and shown them
to be mere impositions upon the inattention and simplicity of
mankind. Those virtues, however, do not require an entire
insensibility to the objects of the passions which they mean to
govern. They only aim at restraining the violence of those
passions so far as not to hurt the individual, and neither
disturb nor offend the society.

VII.II.104

It is the great fallacy of Dr. Mandeville's book*23 to
represent every passion as wholly vicious, which is so in any
degree and in any direction. It is thus that he treats every
thing as vanity which has any reference, either to what are, or
to what ought to be the sentiments of others: and it is by means
of this sophistry, that he establishes his favourite conclusion,
that private vices are public benefits. If the love of
magnificence, a taste for the elegant arts and improvements of
human life, for whatever is agreeable in dress, furniture, or
equipage, for architecture, statuary, painting, and music, is to
be regarded as luxury, sensuality, and ostentation, even in those
whose situation allows, without any inconveniency, the indulgence
of those passions, it is certain that luxury, sensuality, and
ostentation are public benefits: since without the qualities upon
which he thinks proper to bestow such opprobrious names, the arts
of refinement could never find encouragement, and must languish
for want of employment. Some popular ascetic doctrines which had
been current before his time, and which placed virtue in the
entire extirpation and annihilation of all our passions, were the
real foundation of this licentious system. It was easy for Dr
. Mandeville to prove, first, that this entire conquest never
actually took place among men; and secondly, that, if it was to
take place universally, it would be pernicious to society, by
putting an end to all industry and commerce, and in a manner to
the whole business of human life. By the first of these
propositions he seemed to prove that there was no real virtue,
and that what pretended to be such, was a mere cheat and
imposition upon mankind; and by the second, that private vices
were public benefits, since without them no society could prosper
or flourish.

VII.II.105

Such is the system of Dr. Mandeville, which once made so much
noise in the world, and which, though, perhaps, it never gave
occasion to more vice than what would have been without it, at
least taught that vice, which arose from other causes, to appear
with more effrontery, and to avow the corruption of its motives
with a profligate audaciousness which had never been heard of
before.

VII.II.106

But how destructive soever this system may appear, it could
never have imposed upon so great a number of persons, nor have
occasioned so general an alarm among those who are the friends of
better principles, had it not in some respects bordered upon the
truth. A system of natural philosophy may appear very plausible,
and be for a long time very generally received in the world, and
yet have no foundation in nature, nor any sort of resemblance to
the truth. The vortices of Des Cartes were regarded by a very
ingenious nation, for near a century together, as a most
satisfactory account of the revolutions of the heavenly bodies.
Yet it has been demonstrated, to the conviction of all mankind,
that these pretended causes of those wonderful effects, not only
do not actually exist, but are utterly impossible, and if they
did exist, could produce no such effects as are ascribed to them.
But it is otherwise with systems of moral philosophy, and an
author who pretends to account for the origin of our moral
sentiments, cannot deceive us so grossly, nor depart so very far
from all resemblance to the truth. When a traveller gives an
account of some distant country, he may impose upon our credulity
the most groundless and absurd fictions as the most certain
matters of fact. But when a person pretends to inform us of what
passes in our neighbourhood, and of the affairs of the very
parish which we live in, though here too, if we are so careless
as not to examine things with our own eves, he may deceive us in
many respects, yet the greatest falsehoods which he imposes upon
us must bear some resemblance to the truth, and must even have a
considerable mixture of truth in them. An author who treats of
natural philosophy, and pretends to assign the causes of the
great phaenomena of the universe, pretends to give an account of
the affairs of a very distant country, concerning which he may
tell us what he pleases, and as long as his narration keeps
within the bounds of seeming possibility, he need not despair of
gaining our belief. But when he proposes to explain the origin of
our desires and affections, of our sentiments of approbation and
disapprobation, he pretends to give an account, not only of the
affairs of the very parish that we live in, but of our own
domestic concerns. Though here too, like indolent masters who put
their trust in a steward who deceives them, we are very liable to
be imposed upon, yet we are incapable of passing any account
which does not preserve some little regard to the truth. Some of
the articles, at least, must be just, and even those which are
most overcharged must have had some foundation, otherwise the
fraud would be detected even by that careless inspection which we
are disposed to give. The author who should assign, as the cause
of any natural sentiment, some principle which neither had any
connexion with it, nor resembled any other principle which had
some such connexion, would appear absurd and ridiculous to the
most injudicious and unexperienced reader.

Section III
Of the different Systems which have been formed concerning the
Principle of Approbation

Introduction

VII.III.1

After the inquiry concerning the nature of virtue, the next
question of importance in Moral Philosophy, is concerning the
principle of approbation, concerning the power or faculty of the
mind which renders certain characters agreeable or disagreeable
to us, makes us prefer one tenour of conduct to another,
denominate the one right and the other wrong, and consider the
one as the object of approbation, honour, and reward; the other
as that of blame, censure, and punishment.

VII.III.2

Three different accounts have been given of this principle of
approbation. According to some, we approve and disapprove both of
our own actions and of those of others, from self-love only, or
from some view of their tendency to our own happiness or
disadvantage: according to others, reason, the same faculty by
which we distinguish between truth and falsehood, enables us to
distinguish between what is fit and unfit both in actions and
affections: accorDing to others this distinction is altogether
the effect of immediate sentiment and feeling, and arises from
the satisfaction or disgust with which the view of certain
actions or affections inspires us. Self-love, reason, and
sentiment, therefore, are the three different sources which have
been assigned for the principle of approbation.

VII.III.3

Before I proceed to give an account of those different
systems, I must observe, that the determination of this second
question, though of the greatest importance in speculation, is of
none in practice. The question concerning the nature of virtue
necessarily has some influence upon our notions of right and
wrong in many particular cases. That concerning the principle of
approbation can possibly have no such effect. To examine from
what contrivance or mechanism within, those different notions or
sentiments arise, is a mere matter of philosophical curiosity.

Chap. I
Of those Systems which deduce the Principle of Approbation from
Self-love

VII.III.4

Those who account for the principle of approbation from
self-love, do not all account for it in the same manner, and
there is a good deal of confusion and inaccuracy in all their
different systems. According to Mr. Hobbes, and many of his
followers,*24 man is driven to take refuge in society, not by
any natural love which he bears to his own kind, but because
without the assistance of others he is incapable of subsisting
with ease or safety. Society, upon this account, becomes
necessary to him, and whatever tends to its support and welfare,
he considers as having a remote tendency to his own interest;
and, on the contrary, whatever is likely to disturb or destroy
it, he regards as in some measure hurtful or pernicious to
himself. Virtue is the great support, and vice the great
disturber of human society. The former, therefore, is agreeable,
and the latter offensive to every man; as from the one he
foresees the prosperity, and from the other the ruin and disorder
of what is so necessary for the comfort and security of his
existence.

VII.III.5

That the tendency of virtue to promote, and of vice to
disturb the order of society, when we consider it coolly and
philosophically, reflects a very great beauty upon the one, and a
very great deformity upon the other, cannot, as I have observed
upon a former occasion, be called in question. Human society,
when we contemplate it in a certain abstract and philosophical
light, appears like a great, an immense machine, whose regular
and harmonious movements produce a thousand agreeable effects. As
in any other beautiful and noble machine that was the production
of human art, whatever tended to render its movements more smooth
and easy, would derive a beauty from this effect, and, on the
contrary, whatever tended to obstruct them would displease upon
that account: so virtue, which is, as it were, the fine polish to
the wheels of society, necessarily pleases; while vice, like the
vile rust, which makes them jar and grate upon one another, is as
necessarily offensive. This account, therefore, of the origin of
approbation and disapprobation, so far as it derives them from a
regard to the order of society, runs into that principle which
gives beauty to utility, and which I have explained upon a former
occasion; and it is from thence that this system derives all that
appearance of probability which it possesses. When those authors
describe the innumerable advantages of a cultivated and social,
above a savage and solitary life; when they expatiate upon the
necessity of virtue and good order for the maintenance of the
one, and demonstrate how infallibly the prevalence of vice and
disobedience to the laws tend to bring back the other, the reader
is charmed with the novelty and grandeur of those views which
they open to him: he sees plainly a new beauty in virtue, and a
new deformity in vice, which he had never taken notice of before,
and is commonly so delighted with the discovery, that he seldom
takes time to reflect, that this political view, having never
occurred to him in his life before, cannot possibly be the ground
of that approbation and disapprobation with which he has always
been accustomed to consider those different qualities.

VII.III.6

When those authors, on the other hand, deduce from self-love
the interest which we take in the welfare of society, and the
esteem which upon that account we bestow upon virtue, they do not
mean, that when we in this age applaud the virtue of Cato, and
detest the villany of Catiline, our sentiments are influenced by
the notion of any benefit we receive from the one, or of any
detriment we suffer from the other. It was not because the
prosperity or subversion of society, in those remote ages and
nations, was apprehended to have any influence upon our happiness
or misery in the present times; that according to those
philosophers, we esteemed the virtuous, and blamed the disorderly
characters. They never imagined that our sentiments were
influenced by any benefit or damage which we supposed actually to
redound to us, from either; but by that which might have
redounded to us, had we lived in those distant ages and
countries; or by that which might still redound to us, if in our
own times we should meet with characters of the same kind. The
idea, in short, which those authors were groping about, but which
they were never able to unfold distinctly, was that indirect
sympathy which we feel with the gratitude or resentment of those
who received the benefit or suffered the damage resulting from
such opposite characters: and it was this which they were
indistinctly pointing at, when they said, that it was not the
thought of what we had gained or suffered which prompted our
applause or indignation, but the conception or imagination of
what we might gain or suffer if we were to act in society with
such associates.

VII.III.7

Sympathy, however, cannot, in any sense, be regarded as a
selfish principle. When I sympathize with your sorrow or your
indignation, it may be pretended, indeed, that my emotion is
founded in self-love, because it arises from bringing your case
home to myself, from putting myself in your situation, and thence
conceiving what I should feel in the like circumstances. But
though sympathy is very properly said to arise from an imaginary
change of situations with the person principally concerned, yet
this imaginary change is not supposed to happen to me in my own
person and character, but in that of the person with whom I
sympathize. When I condole with you for the loss of your only
son, in order to enter into your grief I do not consider what I,
a person of such a character and profession, should suffer, if I
had a son, and if that son was unfortunately to die: but I
consider what I should suffer if I was really you, and I not only
change circumstances with you, but I change persons and
characters. My grief, therefore, is entirely upon your account,
and not in the least upon my own. It is not, therefore, in the
least selfish. How can that be regarded as a selfish passion,
which does not arise even from the imagination of any thing that
has befallen, or that relates to myself, in my own proper person
and character, but which is entirely occupied about what relates
to you? A man may sympathize with a woman in child-bed; though it
is impossible that he should conceive himself as suffering her
pains in his own proper person and character. That whole account
of human nature, however, which deduces all sentiments and
affections from self-love, which has made so much noise in the
world, but which, so far as I know, has never yet been fully and
distinctly explained, seems to me to have arisen from some
confused misapprehension of the system of sympathy.

Chap. II
Of those Systems which make Reason the Principle of Approbation

VII.III.8

It is well known to have been the doctrine of Mr. Hobbes, that
a state of nature is a state of war; and that antecedent to the
institution of civil government there could be no safe or
peaceable society among men. To preserve society, therefore,
according to him, was to support civil government, and to destroy
civil government was the same thing as to put an end to society.
But the existence of civil government depends upon the obedience
that is paid to the supreme magistrate. The moment he loses his
authority, all government is at an end. As self-preservation,
therefore, teaches men to applaud whatever tends to promote the
welfare of society, and to blame whatever is likely to hurt it;
so the same principle, if they would think and speak
consistently, ought to teach them to applaud upon all occasions
obedience to the civil magistrate, and to blame all disobedience
and rebellion. The very ideas of laudable and blamable, ought to
be the same with those of obedience and disobedience. The laws of
the civil magistrate, therefore, ought to be regarded as the sole
ultimate standards of what was just and unjust, of what was right
and wrong.

VII.III.9

It was the avowed intention of Mr. Hobbes, by propagating
these notions, to subject the consciences of men immediately to
the civil, and not to the ecclesiastical powers, whose turbulence
and ambition, he had been taught, by the example of his own
times, to regard as the principal source of the disorders of
society. His doctrine, upon this account, was peculiarly
offensive to theologians, who accordingly did not fail to vent
their indignation against him with great asperity and bitterness.
It was likewise offensive to all sound moralists, as it supposed
that there was no natural distinction between right and wrong,
that these were mutable and changeable, and depended upon the
mere arbitrary will of the civil magistrate. This account of
things, therefore, was attacked from all quarters, and by all
sorts of weapons, by sober reason as well as by furious
declamation.

VII.III.10

In order to confute so odious a doctrine, it was necessary to
prove, that antecedent to all law or positive institution, the
mind was naturally endowed with a faculty, by which it
distinguished in certain actions and affections, the qualities of
right, laudable, and virtuous, and in others those of wrong,
blamable, and vicious.

VII.III.11

Law, it was justly observed by Dr. Cudworth,*25 could not be
the original source of those distinctions; since upon the
supposition of such a law, it must either be right to obey it,
and wrong to disobey it, or indifferent whether we obeyed it, or
disobeyed it. That law which it was indifferent whether we obeyed
or disobeyed, could not, it was evident, be the source of those
distinctions; neither could that which it was right to obey and
wrong to disobey, since even this still supposed the antecedent
notions or ideas of right and wrong, and that obedience to the
law was conformable to the idea of right, and disobedience to
that of wrong.

VII.III.12

Since the mind, therefore, had a notion of those distinctions
antecedent to all law, it seemed necessarily to follow, that it
derived this notion from reason, which pointed out the difference
between right and wrong, in the same manner in which it did that
between truth and falsehood: and this conclusion, which, though
true in some respects, is rather hasty in others, was more easily
received at a time when the abstract science of human nature was
but in its infancy, and before the distinct offices and powers of
the different faculties of the human mind had been carefully
examined and distinguished from one another. When this
controversy with Mr. Hobbes was carried on with the greatest
warmth and keenness, no other faculty had been thought of from
which any such ideas could possibly be supposed to arise. It
became at this time, therefore, the popular doctrine, that the
essence of virtue and vice did not consist in the conformity or
disagreement of human actions with the law of a superior, but in
their conformity or disagreement with reason, which was thus
considered as the original source and principle of approbation
and disapprobation.

VII.III.13

That virtue consists in conformity to reason, is true in some
respects, and this faculty may very justly be considered as, in
some sense, the source and principle of approbation and
disapprobation, and of all solid judgments concerning right and
wrong. It is by reason that we discover those general rules of
justice by which we ought to regulate our actions: and it is by
the same faculty that we form those more vague and indeterminate
ideas of what is prudent, of what is decent, of what is generous
or noble, which we carry constantly about with us, and according
to which we endeavour, as well as we can, to model the tenor of
our conduct. The general maxims of morality are formed, like all
other general maxims, from experience and induction. We observe
in a great variety of particular cases what pleases or displeases
our moral faculties, what these approve or disapprove of, and, by
induction from this experience, we establish those general rules.
But induction is always regarded as one of the operations of
reason. From reason, therefore, we are very properly said to
derive all those general maxims and ideas. It is by these,
however, that we regulate the greater part of our moral
judgments, which would be extremely uncertain and precarious if
they depended altogether upon what is liable to so many
variations as immediate sentiment and feeling, which the
different states of health and humour are capable of altering so
essentially. As our most solid judgments, therefore, with regard
to right and wrong, are regulated by maxims and ideas derived
from an induction of reason, virtue may very properly be said to
consist in a conformity to reason, and so far this faculty may be
considered as the source and principle of approbation and
disapprobation.

VII.III.14

But though reason is undoubtedly the source of the general
rules of morality, and of all the moral judgments which we form
by means of them; it is altogether absurd and unintelligible to
suppose that the first perceptions of right and wrong can be
derived from reason, even in those particular cases upon the
experience of which the general rules are formed. These first
perceptions, as well as all other experiments upon which any
general rules are founded, cannot be the object of reason, but of
immediate sense and feeling. It is by finding in a vast variety
of instances that one tenor of conduct constantly pleases in a
certain manner, and that another as constantly displeases the
mind, that we form the general rules of morality. But reason
cannot render any particular object either agreeable or
disagreeable to the mind for its own sake. Reason may show that
this object is the means of obtaining some other which is
naturally either pleasing or displeasing, and in this manner may
render it either agreeable or disagreeable for the sake of
something else. But nothing can be agreeable or disagreeable for
its own sake, which is not rendered such by immediate sense and
feeling. If virtue, therefore, in every particular instance,
necessarily pleases for its own sake, and if vice as certainly
displeases the mind, it cannot be reason, but immediate sense and
feeling, which, in this manner, reconciles us to the one, and
alienates us from the other.

VII.III.15

Pleasure and pain are the great objects of desire and
aversion: but these are distinguished not by reason, but by
immediate sense and feeling. If virtue, therefore, be desirable
for its own sake, and if vice be, in the same manner, the object
of aversion, it cannot be reason which originally distinguishes
those different qualities, but immediate sense and feeling.

VII.III.16

As reason, however, in a certain sense, may justly be
considered as the principle of approbation and disapprobation,
these sentiments were, through inattention, long regarded as
originally flowing from the operations of this faculty. Dr.
Hutcheson had the merit of being the first who distinguished with
any degree of precision in what respect all moral distinctions
may be said to arise from reason, and in what respect they are
founded upon immediate sense and feeling. In his illustrations
upon the moral sense he has explained this so fully, and, in my
opinion, so unanswerably, that, if any controversy is still kept
up about this subject, I can impute it to nothing, but either to
inattention to what that gentleman has written, or to a
superstitious attachment to certain forms of expression, a
weakness not very uncommon among the learned, especially in
subjects so deeply interesting as the present, in which a man of
virtue is often loath to abandon, even the propriety of a single
phrase which he has been accustomed to.

Chap. III
Of those Systems which make Sentiment the Principle of
Approbation

VII.III.17

Those systems which make sentiment the principle of
approbation may be divided into two different classes.

VII.III.18

I. According to some the principle of approbation is founded
upon a sentiment of a peculiar nature, upon a particular power of
perception exerted by the mind at the view of certain actions or
affections; some of which affecting this faculty in an agreeable
and others in a disagreeable manner, the former are stamped with
the characters of right, laudable, and virtuous; the latter with
those of wrong, blamable, and vicious. This sentiment being of a
peculiar nature distinct from every other, and the effect of a
particular power of perception, they give it a particular name,
and call it a moral sense.

VII.III.19

II. According to others, in order to account for the
principle of approbation, there is no occasion for supposing any
new power of perception which had never been heard of before:
Nature, they imagine, acts here, as in all other cases, with the
strictest oeconomy, and produces a multitude of effects from one
and the same cause; and sympathy, a power which has always been
taken notice of, and with which the mind is manifestly endowed,
is, they think, sufficient to account for all the effects
ascribed to this peculiar faculty.

VII.III.20

I. Dr. Hutcheson*26 had been at great pains to prove that
the principle of approbation was not founded on self-love. He had
demonstrated too that it could not arise from any operation of
reason. Nothing remained, he thought, but to suppose it a faculty
of a peculiar kind, with which Nature had endowed the human mind,
in order to produce this one particular and important effect.
When self-love and reason were both excluded, it did not occur to
him that there was any other known faculty of the mind which
could in any respect answer this purpose.

VII.III.21

This new power of perception he called a moral sense, and
supposed it to be somewhat analogous to the external senses. As
the bodies around us, by affecting these in a certain manner,
appear to possess the different qualities of sound, taste, odour,
colour; so the various affections of the human mind, by touching
this particular faculty in a certain manner, appear to possess
the different qualities of amiable and odious, of virtuous and
vicious, of right and wrong.

VII.III.22

The various senses or powers of perception,*27 from which
the human mind derives all its simple ideas, were, according to
this system, of two different kinds, of which the one were called
the direct or antecedent, the other, the reflex or consequent
senses. The direct senses were those faculties from which the
mind derived the perception of such species of things as did not
presuppose the antecedent perception of any other. Thus sounds
and colours were objects of the direct senses. To hear a sound or
to see a colour does not presuppose the antecedent perception of
any other quality or object. The reflex or consequent senses, on
the other hand, were those faculties from which the mind derived
the perception of such species of things as presupposed the
antecedent perception of some other. Thus harmony and beauty were
objects of the reflex senses. In order to perceive the harmony of
a sound, or the beauty of a colour, we must first perceive the
sound or the colour. The moral sense was considered as a faculty
of this kind. That faculty, which Mr. Locke calls reflection, and
from which he derived the simple ideas of the different passions
and emotions of the human mind, was, according to Dr. Hutcheson, a
direct internal sense. That faculty again by which we perceived
the beauty or deformity, the virtue or vice of those different
passions and emotions, was a reflex, internal sense.

VII.III.23

Dr. Hutcheson endeavoured still further to support this
doctrine, by shewing that it was agreeable to the analogy of
nature, and that the mind was endowed with a variety of other
reflex senses exactly similar to the moral sense; such as a sense
of beauty and deformity in external objects; a public sense, by
which we sympathize with the happiness or misery of our
fellow-creatures; a sense of shame and honour, and a sense of
ridicule.

VII.III.24

But notwithstanding all the pains which this ingenious
philosopher has taken to prove that the principle of approbation
is founded in a peculiar power of perception, somewhat analogous
to the external senses, there are some consequences, which he
acknowledges to follow from this doctrine, that will, perhaps, be
regarded by many as a sufficient confutation of it. The qualities
he allows,*28 which belong to the objects of any sense, cannot,
without the greatest absurdity, be ascribed to the sense itself.
Who ever thought of calling the sense of seeing black or white,
the sense of hearing loud or low, or the sense of tasting sweet
or bitter? And, according to him, it is equally absurd to call
our moral faculties virtuous or vicious, morally good or evil.
These qualities belong to the objects of those faculties, not to
the faculties themselves. If any man, therefore, was so absurdly
constituted as to approve of cruelty and injustice as the highest
virtues, and to disapprove of equity and humanity as the most
pitiful vices, such a constitution of mind might indeed be
regarded as inconvenient both to the individual and to the
society, and likewise as strange, surprising, and unnatural in
itself; but it could not, without the greatest absurdity, be
denominated vicious or morally evil.

VII.III.25

Yet surely if we saw any man shouting with admiration and
applause at a barbarous and unmerited execution, which some
insolent tyrant had ordered, we should not think we were guilty
of any great absurdity in denominating this behaviour vicious and
morally evil in the highest degree, though it expressed nothing
but depraved moral faculties, or an absurd approbation of this
horrid action, as of what was noble, magnanimous, and great. Our
heart, I imagine, at the sight of such a spectator, would forget
for a while its sympathy with the sufferer, and feel nothing but
horror and detestation, at the thought of so execrable a wretch.
We should abominate him even more than the tyrant who might be
goaded on by the strong passions of jealousy, fear, and
resentment, and upon that account be more excusable. But the
sentiments of the spectator would appear altogether without cause
or motive, and therefore most perfectly and completely
detestable. There is no perversion of sentiment or affection
which our heart would be more averse to enter into, or which it
would reject with greater hatred and indignation than one of this
kind; and so far from regarding such a constitution of mind as
being merely something strange or inconvenient, and not in any
respect vicious or morally evil, we should rather consider it as
the very last and most dreadful stage of moral depravity.

VII.III.26

Correct moral sentiments, on the contrary, naturally appear
in some degree laudable and morally good. The man, whose censure
and applause are upon all occasions suited with the greatest
accuracy to the value or unworthiness of the object, seems to
deserve a degree even of moral approbation. We admire the
delicate precision of his moral sentiments: they lead our own
judgments, and, upon account of their uncommon and surprising
justness, they even excite our wonder and applause. We cannot
indeed be always sure that the conduct of such a person would be
in any respect correspondent to the precision and accuracy of his
judgments concerning the conduct of others. Virtue requires habit
and resolution of mind, as well as delicacy of sentiment; and
unfortunately the former qualities are sometimes wanting, where
the latter is in the greatest perfection. This disposition of
mind, however, though it may sometimes be attended with
imperfections, is incompatible with any thing that is grossly
criminal, and is the happiest foundation upon which the
superstructure of perfect virtue can be built. There are many men
who mean very well, and seriously purpose to do what they think
their duty, who notwithstanding are disagreeable on account of
the coarseness of their moral sentiments.

VII.III.27

It may be said, perhaps, that though the principle of
approbation is not founded upon any power of perception that is
in any respect analogous to the external senses, it may still be
founded upon a peculiar sentiment which answers this one
particular purpose and no other. Approbation and disapprobation,
it may be pretended, are certain feelings or emotions which arise
in the mind upon the view of different characters and actions;
and as resentment might be called a sense of injuries, or
gratitude a sense of benefits, so these may very properly receive
the name of a sense of right and wrong, or of a moral sense.

VII.III.28

But this account of things, though it may not be liable to
the same objections with the foregoing, is exposed to others
which are equally unanswerable.

VII.III.29

First of all, whatever variations any particular emotion may
undergo, it still preserves the general features which
distinguish it to be an emotion of such a kind, and these general
features are always more striking and remarkable than any
variation which it may undergo in particular cases. Thus anger is
an emotion of a particular kind: and accordingly its general
features are always more distinguishable than all the variations
it undergoes in particular cases. Anger against a man is, no
doubt, somewhat different from anger against a woman, and that
again from anger against a child. In each of those three cases,
the general passion of anger receives a different modification
from the particular character of its object, as may easily be
observed by the attentive. But still the general features of the
passion predominate in all these cases. To distinguish these,
requires no nice observation: a very delicate attention, on the
contrary, is necessary to discover their variations: every body
takes notice of the former; scarce any body observes the latter.
If approbation and disapprobation, therefore, were, like
gratitude and resentment, emotions of a particular kind, distinct
from every other, we should expect that in all the variations
which either of them might undergo, it would still retain the
general features which mark it to be an emotion of such a
particular kind, clear, plain, and easily distinguishable. But in
fact it happens quite otherwise. If we attend to what we really
feel when upon different occasions we either approve or
disapprove, we shall find that our emotion in one case is often
totally different from that in another, and that no common
features can possibly be discovered between them. Thus the
approbation with which we view a tender, delicate, and humane
sentiment, is quite different from that with which we are struck
by one that appears great, daring, and magnanimous. Our
approbation of both may, upon different occasions, be perfect and
entire; but we are softened by the one, and we are elevated by
the other, and there is no sort of resemblance between the
emotions which they excite in us. But according to that system
which I have been endeavouring to establish, this must
necessarily be the case. As the emotions of the person whom we
approve of, are, in those two cases, quite opposite to one
another, and as our approbation arises from sympathy with those
opposite emotions, what we feel upon the one occasion, can have
no sort of resemblance to what we feel upon the other. But this
could not happen if approbation consisted in a peculiar emotion
which had nothing in common with the sentiments we approved of,
but which arose at the view of those sentiments, like any other
passion at the view of its proper object. The same thing holds
true with regard to disapprobation. Our horror for cruelty has no
sort of resemblance to our contempt for mean-spiritedness. It is
quite a different species of discord which we feel at the view of
those two different vices, between our own minds and those of the
person whose sentiments and behaviour we consider.

VII.III.30

Secondly, I have already observed, that not only the
different passions or affections of the human mind which are
approved or disapproved of, appear morally good or evil, but that
proper and improper approbation appear, to our natural
sentiments, to be stamped with the same characters. I would ask,
therefore, how it is, that, according to this system, we approve
or disapprove of proper or improper approbation? To this question
there is, I imagine, but one reasonable answer, which can
possibly be given. It must be said, that when the approbation
with which our neighbour regards the conduct of a third person
coincides with our own, we approve of his approbation, and
consider it as, in some measure, morally good; and that, on the
contrary, when it does not coincide with our own sentiments, we
disapprove of it, and consider it as, in some measure, morally
evil. It must be allowed, therefore, that, at least in this one
case, the coincidence or opposition of sentiments, between the
observer and the person observed, constitutes moral approbation
or disapprobation. And if it does so in this one case, I would
ask, why not in every other? Or to what purpose imagine a new
power of perception in order to account for those sentiments?

VII.III.31

Against every account of the principle of approbation, which
makes it depend upon a peculiar sentiment, distinct from every
other, I would object; that it is strange that this sentiment,
which Providence undoubtedly intended to be the governing
principle of human nature, should hitherto have been so little
taken notice of, as not to have got a name in any language. The
word moral sense is of very late formation, and cannot yet be
considered as making part of the English tongue. The word
approbation has but within these few years been appropriated to
denote peculiarly any thing of this kind. In propriety of
language we approve of whatever is entirely to our satisfaction,
of the form of a building, of the contrivance of a machine, of
the flavour of a dish of meat. The word conscience does not
immediately denote any moral faculty by which we approve or
disapprove. Conscience supposes, indeed, the existence of some
such faculty, and properly signifies our consciousness of having
acted agreeably or contrary to its directions. When love, hatred,
joy, sorrow, gratitude, resentment, with so many other passions
which are all supposed to be the subjects of this principle, have
made themselves considerable enough to get titles to know them
by, is it not surprising that the sovereign of them all should
hitherto have been so little heeded, that, a few philosophers
excepted, nobody has yet thought it worth while to bestow a name
upon it?

VII.III.32

When we approve of any character or action, the sentiments
which we feel, are, according to the foregoing system, derived
from four sources, which are in some respects different from one
another. First, we sympathize with the motives of the agent;
secondly, we enter into the gratitude of those who receive the
benefit of his actions; thirdly, we observe that his conduct has
been agreeable to the general rules by which those two sympathies
generally act; and, last of all, when we consider such actions as
making a part of a system of behaviour which tends to promote the
happiness either of the individual or of the society, they appear
to derive a beauty from this utility, not unlike that which we
ascribe to any well-contrived machine. After deducting, in any
one particular case, all that must be acknowledged to proceed
from some one or other of these four principles, I should be glad
to know what remains, and I shall freely allow this overplus to
be ascribed to a moral sense, or to any other peculiar faculty,
provided any body will ascertain precisely what this overplus is.
It might be expected, perhaps, that if there was any such
peculiar principle, such as this moral sense is supposed to be,
we should feel it, in some particular cases, separated and
detached from every other, as we often feel joy, sorrow, hope,
and fear, pure and unmixed with any other emotion. This however,
I imagine, cannot even be pretended. I have never heard any
instance alleged in which this principle could be said to exert
itself alone and unmixed with sympathy or antipathy, with
gratitude or resentment, with the perception of the agreement or
disagreement of any action to an established rule, or last of all
with that general taste for beauty and order which is excited by
inanimated as well as by animated objects.

VII.III.33

II. There is another system which attempts to account for the
origin of our moral sentiments from sympathy, distinct from that
which I have been endeavouring to establish. It is that which
places virtue in utility, and accounts for the pleasure with
which the spectator surveys the utility of any quality from
sympathy with the happiness of those who are affected by it. This
sympathy is different both from that by which we enter into the
motives of the agent, and from that by which we go along with the
gratitude of the persons who are benefited by his actions. It is
the same principle with that by which we approve of a
well-contrived machine. But no machine can be the object of
either of those two last mentioned sympathies. I have already, in
the fourth part of this discourse, given some account of this
system.

Section IV
Of the Manner in which different Authors have treated of the
practical Rules of Morality

VII.IV.1

It was observed in the third part of this discourse, that the
rules of justice are the only rules of morality which are precise
and accurate; that those of all the other virtues are loose,
vague, and indeterminate; that the first may be compared to the
rules of grammar; the others to those which critics lay down for
the attainment of what is sublime and elegant in composition, and
which present us rather with a general idea of the perfection we
ought to aim at, than afford us any certain and infallible
directions for acquiring it.

VII.IV.2

As the different rules of morality admit such different
degrees of accuracy, those authors who have endeavoured to
collect and digest them into systems have done it in two
Different manners; and one set has followed through the whole
that loose method to which they were naturally directed by the
consideration of one species of virtues; while another has as
universally endeavoured to introduce into their precepts that
sort of accuracy of which only some of them are susceptible. The
first have wrote like critics, the second like grammarians.

VII.IV.3

I. The first, among whom we may count all the ancient
moralists, have contented themselves with describing in a general
manner the different vices and virtues, and with pointing out the
deformity and misery of the one disposition as well as the
propriety and happiness of the other, but have not affected to
lay down many precise rules that are to hold good unexceptionably
in all particular cases. They have only endeavoured to ascertain,
as far as language is capable of ascertaining, first, wherein
consists the sentiment of the heart, upon which each particular
virtue is founded, what sort of internal feeling or emotion it is
which constitutes the essence of friendship, of humanity, of
generosity, of justice, of magnanimity, and of all the other
virtues, as well as of the vices which are opposed to them: and,
secondly, what is the general way of acting, the ordinary tone
and tenor of conduct to which each of those sentiments would
direct us, or how it is that a friendly, a generous, a brave, a
just, and a humane man, would, upon ordinary occasions, chuse to
act.

VII.IV.4

To characterize the sentiment of the heart, upon which each
particular virtue is founded, though it requires both a delicate
and an accurate pencil, is a task, however, which may be executed
with some degree of exactness. It is impossible, indeed, to
express all the variations which each sentiment either does or
ought to undergo, according to every possible variation of
circumstances. They are endless, and language wants names to mark
them by. The sentiment of friendship, for example, which we feel
for an old man is different from that which we feel for a young:
that which we entertain for an austere man different from that
which we feel for one of softer and gentler manners: and that
again from what we feel for one of gay vivacity and spirit. The
friendship which we conceive for a man is different from that
with which a woman affects us, even where there is no mixture of
any grosser passion. What author could enumerate and ascertain
these and all the other infinite varieties which this sentiment
is capable of undergoing? But still the general sentiment of
friendship and familiar attachment which is common to them all,
may be ascertained with a sufficient degree of accuracy. The
picture which is drawn of it, though it will always be in many
respects incomplete, may, however, have such a resemblance as to
make us know the original when we meet with it, and even
distinguish it from other sentiments to which it has a
considerable resemblance, such as good-will, respect, esteem,
admiration.

VII.IV.5

To describe, in a general manner, what is the ordinary way of
acting to which each virtue would prompt us, is still more easy.
It is, indeed, scarce possible to describe the internal sentiment
or emotion upon which it is founded, without doing something of
this kind. It is impossible by language to express, if I may say
so, the invisible features of all the different modifications of
passion as they show themselves within. There is no other way of
marking and distinguishing them from one another, but by
describing the effects which they produce without, the
alterations which they occasion in the countenance, in the air
and eternal behaviour, the resolutions they suggest, the actions
they prompt to. It is thus that Cicero, in the first book of his
Offices, endeavours to direct us to the practice of the four
cardinal virtues, and that Aristotle in the practical parts of
his Ethics, points out to us the different habits by which he
would have us regulate our behaviour, such as liberality,
magnificence, magnanimity, and even jocularity and good-humour,
qualities which that indulgent philosopher has thought worthy of
a place in the catalogue of the virtues, though the lightness of
that approbation which we naturally bestow upon them, should not
seem to entitle them to so venerable a name.

VII.IV.6

Such works present us with agreeable and lively pictures of
manners. By the vivacity of their descriptions they inflame our
natural love of virtue, and increase our abhorrence of vice: by
the justness as well as delicacy of their observations they may
often help both to correct and to ascertain our natural
sentiments with regard to the propriety of conduct, and
suggesting many nice and delicate attentions, form us to a more
exact justness of behaviour, than what, without such instruction,
we should have been apt to think of. In treating of the rules of
morality, in this manner, consists the science which is properly
called Ethics, a science which, though like criticism it does not
admit of the most accurate precision, is, however, both highly
useful and agreeable. It is of all others the most susceptible of
the embellishments of eloquence, and by means of them of
bestowing, if that be possible, a new importance upon the
smallest rules of duty. Its precepts, when thus dressed and
adorned, are capable of producing upon the flexibility of youth,
the noblest and most lasting impressions, and as they fall in
with the natural magnanimity of that generous age, they are able
to inspire, for a time at least, the most heroic resolutions, and
thus tend both to establish and confirm the best and most useful
habits of which the mind of man is susceptible. Whatever precept
and exhortation can do to animate us to the practice of virtue,
is done by this science delivered in this manner.

VII.IV.7

II. The second set of moralists, among whom we may count all the
casuists of the middle and latter ages of the christian church,
as well as all those who in this and in the preceding century
have treated of what is called natural jurisprudence, do not
content themselves with characterizing in this general manner
that tenor of conduct which they would recommend to us, but
endeavour to lay down exact and precise rules for the direction
of every circumstance of our behaviour. As justice is the only
virtue with regard to which such exact rules can properly be
given; it is this virtue, that has chiefly fallen under the
consideration of those two different sets of writers. They treat
of it, however, in a very different manner.

VII.IV.8

Those who write upon the principles of jurisprudence,
consider only what the person to whom the obligation is due,
ought to think himself entitled to exact by force; what every
impartial spectator would approve of him for exacting, or what a
judge or arbiter, to whom he had submitted his case, and who had
undertaken to do him justice, ought to oblige the other person to
suffer or to perform. The casuists, on the other hand, do not so
much examine what it is, that might properly be exacted by force,
as what it is, that the person who owes the obligation ought to
think himself bound to perform from the most sacred and
scrupulous regard to the general rules of justice, and from the
most conscientious dread, either of wronging his neighbour, or of
violating the integrity of his own character. It is the end of
jurisprudence to prescribe rules for the decisions of judges and
arbiters. It is the end of casuistry to prescribe rules for the
conduct of a good man. By observing all the rules of
jurisprudence, supposing them ever so perfect, we should deserve
nothing but to be free from external punishment. By observing
those of casuistry, supposing them such as they ought to be, we
should be entitled to considerable praise by the exact and
scrupulous delicacy of our behaviour.

VII.IV.9

It may frequently happen that a good man ought to think
himself bound, from a sacred and conscientious regard to the
general rules of justice, to perform many things which it would
be the highest injustice to extort from him, or for any judge or
arbiter to impose upon him by force. To give a trite example; a
highwayman, by the fear of death, obliges a traveller to promise
him a certain sum of money. Whether such a promise, extorted in
this manner by unjust force, ought to be regarded as obligatory,
is a question that has been very much debated.

VII.IV.10

If we consider it merely as a question of jurisprudence, the
decision can admit of no doubt. It would be absurd to suppose
that the highwayman can be entitled to use force to constrain the
other to perform. To extort the promise was a crime which
deserved the highest punishment, and to extort the performance
would only be adding a new crime to the former. He can complain
of no injury who has been only deceived by the person by whom he
might justly have been killed. To suppose that a judge ought to
enforce the obligation of such promises, or that the magistrate
ought to allow them to sustain action at law, would be the most
ridiculous of all absurdities. If we consider this question,
therefore, as a question of jurisprudence, we can be at no loss
about the decision.

VII.IV.11

But if we consider it as a question of casuistry, it will not
be so easily determined. Whether a good man, from a conscientious
regard to that most sacred rule of justice, which commands the
observance of all serious promises, would not think himself bound
to perform, is at least much more doubtful. That no regard is due
to the disappointment of the wretch who brings him into this
situation, that no injury is done to the robber, and consequently
that nothing can be extorted by force, will admit of no sort of
dispute. But whether some regard is not, in this case, due to his
own dignity and honour, to the inviolable sacredness of that part
of his character which makes him reverence the law of truth and
abhor every thing that approaches to treachery and falsehood,
may, perhaps, more reasonably be made a question. The casuists
accordingly are greatly divided about it. One party, with whom we
may count Cicero among the ancients, among the moderns,
Puffendorf, Barbeyrac his commentator, and above all the late Dr. Hutcheson, one who in most cases was by no means a loose casuist,
determine, without any hesitation, that no sort of regard is due
to any such promise, and that to think otherwise is mere weakness
and superstition. Another party, among whom we may reckon
*29 some of the ancient fathers of the church, as well as some
very eminent modern casuists, have been of another opinion, and
have judged all such promises obligatory.

VII.IV.12

If we consider the matter according to the common sentiments
of mankind, we shall find that some regard would be thought due
even to a promise of this kind; but that it is impossible to
determine how much, by any general rule that will apply to all
cases without exception. The man who was quite frank and easy in
making promises of this kind, and who violated them with as
little ceremony, we should not chuse for our friend and
companion. A gentleman who should promise a highwayman five
pounds and not perform, would incur some blame. If the sum
promised, however, was very great, it might be more doubtful,
what was proper to be done. If it was such, for example, that the
payment of it would entirely ruin the family of the promiser, if
it was so great as to be sufficient for promoting the most useful
purposes, it would appear in some measure criminal, at least
extremely improper, to throw it, for the sake of a punctilio,
into such worthless hands. The man who should beggar himself, or
who should throw away an hundred thousand pounds, though he could
afford that vast sum, for the sake of observing such a parole
with a thief, would appear to the common sense of mankind, absurd
and extravagant in the highest degree. Such profusion would seem
inconsistent with his duty, with what he owed both to himself and
others, and what, therefore, regard to a promise extorted in this
manner, could by no means authorise. To fix, however, by any
precise rule, what degree of regard ought to be paid to it, or
what might be the greatest sum which could be due from it, is
evidently impossible. This would vary according to the characters
of the persons, according to their circumstances, according to
the solemnity of the promise, and even according to the incidents
of the rencounter. and if the promiser had been treated with a
great deal of that sort of gallantry, which is sometimes to be
met with in persons of the most abandoned characters, more would
seem due than upon other occasions. It may be said in general,
that exact propriety requires the observance of all such
promises, wherever it is not inconsistent with some other duties
that are more sacred; such as regard to the public interest, to
those whom gratitude, whom natural affection, or whom the laws of
proper beneficence should prompt us to provide for. But, as was
formerly taken notice of, we have no precise rules to determine
what external actions are due from a regard to such motives, nor,
consequently, when it is that those virtues are inconsistent with
the observance of such promises.

VII.IV.13

It is to be observed, however, that whenever such promises
are violated, though for the most necessary reasons, it is always
with some degree of dishonour to the person who made them. After
they are made, we may be convinced of the impropriety of
observing them. But still there is some fault in having made
them. It is at least a departure from the highest and noblest
maxims of magnanimity and honour. A brave man ought to die,
rather than make a promise which he can neither keep without
folly, nor violate without ignominy. For some degree of ignominy
always attends a situation of this kind. Treachery and falsehood
are vices so dangerous, so dreadful, and, at the same time, such
as may so easily, and, upon many occasions, so safely be
indulged, that we are more jealous of them than of almost any
other. Our imagination therefore attaches the idea of shame to
all violations of faith, in every circumstance and in every
situation. They resemble, in this respect, the violations of
chastity in the fair sex, a virtue of which, for the like
reasons, we are excessively jealous; and our sentiments are not
more delicate with regard to the one, than with regard to the
other. Breach of chastity dishonours irretrievably. No
circumstances, no solicitation can excuse it; no sorrow, no
repentance atone for it. We are so nice in this respect that even
a rape dishonours, and the innocence of the mind cannot, in our
imagination, wash out the pollution of the body. It is the same
case with the violation of faith, when it has been solemnly
pledged, even to the most worthless of mankind. Fidelity is so
necessary a virtue, that we apprehend it in general to be due
even to those to whom nothing else is due, and whom we think it
lawful to kill and destroy. It is to no purpose that the person
who has been guilty of the breach of it, urges that he promised
in order to save his life, and that he broke his promise because
it was inconsistent with some other respectable duty to keep it.
These circumstances may alleviate, but cannot entirely wipe out
his dishonour. He appears to have been guilty of an action with
which, in the imaginations of men, some degree of shame is
inseparably connected. He has broke a promise which he had
solemnly averred he would maintain; and his character, if not
irretrievably stained and polluted, has at least a ridicule
affixed to it, which it will be very difficult entirely to
efface; and no man, I imagine, who had gone through an adventure
of this kind would be fond of telling the story.

VII.IV.14

This instance may serve to show wherein consists the
difference between casuistry and jurisprudence, even when both of
them consider the obligations of the general rules of justice.

VII.IV.15

But though this difference be real and essential, though
those two sciences propose quite different ends, the sameness of
the subject has made such a similarity between them, that the
greater part of authors whose professed design was to treat of
jurisprudence, have determined the different questions they
examine, sometimes according to the principles of that science,
and sometimes according to those of casuistry, without
distinguishing, and, perhaps, without being themselves aware when
they did the one, and when the other.

VII.IV.16

The doctrine of the casuists, however, is by no means
confined to the consideration of what a conscientious regard to
the general rules of justice would demand of us. It embraces many
other parts of Christian and moral duty. What seems principally
to have given occasion to the cultivation of this species of
science was the custom of auricular confession, introduced by the
Roman Catholic superstition, in times of barbarism and ignorance.
By that institution, the most secret actions, and even the
thoughts of every person, which could be suspected of receding in
the smallest degree from the rules of Christian purity, were to
be revealed to the confessor. The confessor informed his
penitents whether, and in what respect they had violated their
duty, and what penance it behoved them to undergo, before he
could absolve them in the name of the offended Deity.

VII.IV.17

The consciousness, or even the suspicion of having done
wrong, is a load upon every mind, and is accompanied with anxiety
and terror in all those who are not hardened by long habits of
iniquity. Men, in this, as in all other distresses, are naturally
eager to disburthen themselves of the oppression which they feel
upon their thoughts, by unbosoming the agony of their mind to
some person whose secrecy and discretion they can confide in. The
shame, which they suffer from this acknowledgment, is fully
compensated by that deviation of their uneasiness which the
sympathy of their confident seldom fails to occasion. It relieves
them to find that they are not altogether unworthy of regard, and
that however their past conduct may be censured, their present
disposition is at least approved of, and is perhaps sufficient to
compensate the other, at least to maintain them in some degree of
esteem with their friend. A numerous and artful clergy had, in
those times of superstition, insinuated themselves into the
confidence of almost every private family. They possessed all the
little learning which the times could afford, and their manners,
though in many respects rude and disorderly, were polished and
regular compared with those of the age they lived in. They were
regarded, therefore, not only as the great directors of all
religious, but of all moral duties. Their familiarity gave
reputation to whoever was so happy as to possess it, and every
mark of their disapprobation stamped the deepest ignominy upon
all who had the misfortune to fall under it. Being considered as
the great judges of right and wrong, they were naturally
consulted about all scruples that occurred, and it was reputable
for any person to have it known that he made those holy men the
confidents of all such secrets, and took no important or delicate
step in his conduct without their advice and approbation. It was
not difficult for the clergy, therefore, to get it established as
a general rule, that they should be entrusted with what it had
already become fashionable to entrust them, and with what they
generally would have been entrusted, though no such rule had been
established. To qualify themselves for confessors became thus a
necessary part of the study of churchmen and divines, and they
were thence led to collect what are called cases of conscience,
nice and delicate situations in which it is hard to determine
whereabouts the propriety of conduct may lie. Such works, they
imagined, might be of use both to the directors of consciences
and to those who were to be directed; and hence the origin of
books of casuistry.

VII.IV.18

The moral duties which fell under the consideration of the
casuists were chiefly those which can, in some measure at least,
be circumscribed within general rules, and of which the violation
is naturally attended with some degree of remorse and some dread
of suffering punishment. The design of that institution which
gave occasion to their works, was to appease those terrors of
conscience which attend upon the infringement of such duties. But
it is not every virtue of which the defect is accompanied with
any very severe compunctions of this kind, and no man applies to
his confessor for absolution, because he did not perform the most
generous, the most friendly, or the most magnanimous action
which, in his circumstances, it was possible to perform. In
failures of this kind, the rule that is violated is commonly not
very determinate, and is generally of such a nature too, that
though the observance of it might entitle to honour and reward,
the violation seems to expose to no positive blame, censure, or
punishment. The exercise of such virtues the casuists seem to
have regarded as a sort of works of supererogation, which could
not be very strictly exacted, and which it was therefore
unnecessary for them to treat of.

VII.IV.19

The breaches of moral duty, therefore, which came before the
tribunal of the confessor, and upon that account fell under the
cognizance of the casuists, were chiefly of three different
kinds.

VII.IV.20

First and principally, breaches of the rules of justice. The
rules here are all express and positive, and the violation of
them is naturally attended with the consciousness of deserving,
and the dread of suffering punishment both from God and man.

VII.IV.21

Secondly, breaches of the rules of chastity. These in all
grosser instances are real breaches of the rules of justice, and
no person can be guilty of them without doing the most
unpardonable injury to some other. In smaller instances, when
they amount only to a violation of those exact decorums which
ought to be observed in the conversation of the two sexes, they
cannot indeed justly be considered as violations of the rules of
justice. They are generally, however, violations of a pretty
plain rule, and, at least in one of the sexes, tend to bring
ignominy upon the person who has been guilty of them, and
consequently to be attended in the scrupulous with some degree of
shame and contrition of mind.

VII.IV.22

Thirdly, breaches of the rules of veracity. The violation of
truth, it is to be observed, is not always a breach of justice,
though it is so upon many occasions, and consequently cannot
always expose to any external punishment. The vice of common
lying, though a most miserable meanness, may frequently do hurt
to nobody, and in this case no claim of vengeance or satisfaction
can be due either to the persons imposed upon, or to others. But
though the violation of truth is not always a breach of justice,
it is always a breach of a very plain rule, and what naturally
tends to cover with shame the person who has been guilty of it.

VII.IV.23

There seems to be in young children an instinctive
disposition to believe whatever they are told. Nature seems to
have judged it necessary for their preservation that they should,
for some time at least, put implicit confidence in those to whom
the care of their childhood, and of the earliest and most
necessary parts of their education, is intrusted. Their
credulity, accordingly, is excessive, and it requires long and
much experience of the falsehood of mankind to reduce them to a
reasonable degree of diffidence and distrust. In grown-up people
the degrees of credulity are, no doubt, very different. The
wisest and most experienced are generally the least credulous.
But the man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought
to be, and who does not, upon many occasions, give credit to
tales, which not only turn out to be perfectly false, but which a
very moderate degree of reflection and attention might have
taught him could not well be true. The natural disposition is
always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that
teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. The
wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to
stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and
astonished that he could possibly think of believing.

VII.IV.24

The man whom we believe is necessarily, in the things
concerning which we believe him, our leader and director, and we
look up to him with a certain degree of esteem and respect. But
as from admiring other people we come to wish to be admired
ourselves; so from being led and directed by other people we
learn to wish to become ourselves leaders and directors. And as
we cannot always be satisfied merely with being admired, unless
we can at the same time persuade ourselves that we are in some
degree really worthy of admiration; so we cannot always be
satisfied merely with being believed, unless we are at the same
time conscious that we are really worthy of belief. As the desire
of praise and that of praise-worthiness, though very much a-kin,
are yet distinct and separate desires; so the desire of being
believed and that of being worthy of belief, though very much
a-kin too, are equally distinct and separate desires.

VII.IV.25

The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of
leading and directing other people, seems to be one of the
strongest of all our natural desires. It is, perhaps, the
instinct upon which is founded the faculty of speech, the
characteristical faculty of human nature. No other animal
possesses this faculty, and we cannot discover in any other
animal any desire to lead and direct the judgment and conduct of
its fellows. Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of
leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man,
and speech is the great instrument of ambition, of real
superiority, of leading and directing the judgments and conduct
of other people.

VII.IV.26

It is always mortifying not to be believed, and it is doubly
so when we suspect that it is because we are supposed to be
unworthy of belief and capable of seriously and wilfully
deceiving. To tell a man that he lies, is of all affronts the
most mortal. But whoever seriously and wilfully deceives is
necessarily conscious to himself that he merits this affront,
that he does not deserve to be believed, and that he forfeits all
title to that sort of credit from which alone he can derive any
sort of ease, comfort, or satisfaction in the society of his
equals. The man who had the misfortune to imagine that nobody
believed a single word he said, would feel himself the outcast of
human society, would dread the very thought of going into it, or
of presenting himself before it, and could scarce fail, I think,
to die of despair. It is probable, however, that no man ever had
just reason to entertain this humiliating opinion of himself. The
most notorious liar, I am disposed to believe, tells the fair
truth at least twenty times for once that he seriously and
deliberately lies; and, as in the most cautious the disposition
to believe is apt to prevail over that to doubt and distrust; so
in those who are the most regardless of truth, the natural
disposition to tell it prevails upon most occasions over that to
deceive, or in any respect to alter or disguise it.

VII.IV.27

We are mortified when we happen to deceive other people,
though unintentionally, and from having been ourselves deceived.
Though this involuntary falsehood may frequently be no mark of
any want of veracity, of any want of the most perfect love of
truth, it is always in some degree a mark of want of judgment, of
want of memory, of improper credulity, of some degree of
precipitancy and rashness. It always diminishes our authority to
persuade, and always brings some degree of suspicion upon our
fitness to lead and direct. The man who sometimes misleads from
mistake, however, is widely different from him who is capable of
wilfully deceiving. The former may safely be trusted upon many
occasions; the latter very seldom upon any.

VII.IV.28

Frankness and openness conciliate confidence. We trust the
man who seems willing to trust us. We see clearly, we think, the
road by which he means to conduct us, and we abandon ourselves
with pleasure to his guidance and direction. Reserve and
concealment, on the contrary, call forth diffidence. We are
afraid to follow the man who is going we do not know where. The
great pleasure of conversation and society, besides, arises from
a certain correspondence of sentiments and opinions, from a
certain harmony of minds, which like so many musical instruments
coincide and keep time with one another. But this most delightful
harmony cannot be obtained unless there is a free communication
of sentiments and opinions. We all desire, upon this account, to
feel how each other is affected, to penetrate into each other's
bosoms, and to observe the sentiments and affections which really
subsist there. The man who indulges us in this natural passion,
who invites us into his heart, who, as it were, sets open the
gates of his breast to us, seems to exercise a species of
hospitality more delightful than any other. No man, who is in
ordinary good temper, can fail of pleasing, if he has the courage
to utter his real sentiments as he feels them, and because he
feels them. It is this unreserved sincerity which renders even
the prattle of a child agreeable. How weak and imperfect soever
the views of the open-hearted, we take pleasure to enter into
them, and endeavour, as much as we can, to bring down our own
understanding to the level of their capacities, and to regard
every subject in the particular light in which they appear to
have considered it. This passion to discover the real sentiments
of others is naturally so strong, that it often degenerates into
a troublesome and impertinent curiosity to pry into those secrets
of our neighbours which they have very justifiable reasons for
concealing; and, upon many occasions, it requires prudence and a
strong sense of propriety to govern this, as well as all the
other passions of human nature, and to reduce it to that pitch
which any impartial spectator can approve of. To disappoint this
curiosity, however, when it is kept within proper bounds, and
aims at nothing which there can be any just reason for
concealing, is equally disagreeable in its turn. The man who
eludes our most innocent questions, who gives no satisfaction to
our most inoffensive inquiries, who plainly wraps himself up in
impenetrable obscurity, seems, as it were, to build a wall about
his breast. We run forward to get within it, with all the
eagerness of harmless curiosity; and feel ourselves all at once
pushed back with the rudest and most offensive violence.

VII.IV.29

The man of reserve and concealment, though seldom a very
amiable character, is not disrespected or despised. He seems to
feel coldly towards us, and we feel as coldly towards him. He is
not much praised or beloved, but he is as little hated or blamed.
He very seldom, however, has occasion to repent of his caution,
and is generally disposed rather to value himself upon the
prudence of his reserve. Though his conduct, therefore, may have
been very faulty, and sometimes even hurtful, he can very seldom
be disposed to lay his case before the casuists, or to fancy that
he has any occasion for their acquittal or approbation.

VII.IV.30

It is not always so with the man, who, from false
information, from inadvertency, from precipitancy and rashness,
has involuntarily deceived. Though it should be in a matter of
little consequence, in telling a piece of common news, for
example, if he is a real lover of truth, he is ashamed of his own
carelessness, and never fails to embrace the first opportunity of
making the fullest acknowledgments. If it is in a matter of some
consequence, his contrition is still greater; and if any unlucky
or fatal consequence has followed from his misinformation, he can
scarce ever forgive himself. Though not guilty, he feels himself
to be in the highest degree, what the ancients called, piacular,
and is anxious and eager to make every sort of atonement in his
power. Such a person might frequently be disposed to lay his case
before the casuists, who have in general been very favourable to
him, and though they have sometimes justly condemned him for
rashness, they have universally acquitted him of the ignominy of
falsehood.

VII.IV.31

But the man who had the most frequent occasion to consult
them, was the man of equivocation and mental reservation, the man
who seriously and deliberately meant to deceive, but who, at the
same time, wished to flatter himself that he had really told the
truth. With him they have dealt variously. When they approved
very much of the motives of his deceit, they have sometimes
acquitted him, though, to do them justice, they have in general
and much more frequently condemned him.

VII.IV.32

The chief subjects of the works of the casuists, therefore,
were the conscientious regard that is due to the rules of
justice; how far we ought to respect the life and property of our
neighbour; the duty of restitution; the laws of chastity and
modesty, and wherein consisted what, in their language, are
called the sins of concupiscence; the rules of veracity, and the
obligation of oaths, promises, and contracts of all kinds.

VII.IV.33

It may be said in general of the works of the casuists that
they attempted, to no purpose, to direct by precise rules what it
belongs to feeling and sentiment only to judge of. How is it
possible to ascertain by rules the exact point at which, in every
case, a delicate sense of justice begins to run into a frivolous
and weak scrupulosity of conscience? When it is that secrecy and
reserve begin to grow into dissimulation? How far an agreeable
irony may be carried, and at what precise point it begins to
degenerate into a detest. able lie? What is the highest pitch of
freedom and ease of behaviour which can be regarded as graceful
and becoming, and when it is that it first begins to run into a
negligent and thoughtless licentiousness? With regard to all such
matters, what would hold good in any one case would scarce do so
exactly in any other, and what constitutes the propriety and
happiness of behaviour varies in every case with the smallest
variety of situation. Books of casuistry, therefore, are
generally as useless as they are commonly tiresome. They could be
of little use to one who should consult them upon occasion, even
supposing their decisions to be just; because, notwithstanding
the multitude of cases collected in them, yet upon account of the
still greater variety of possible circumstances, it is a chance,
if among all those cases there be found one exactly parallel to
that under consideration. One, who is really anxious to do his
duty, must be very weak, if he can imagine that he has much
occasion for them; and with regard to one who is negligent of it,
the style of those writings is not such as is likely to awaken
him to more attention. None of them tend to animate us to what is
generous and noble. None of them tend to soften us to what is
gentle and humane. Many of them, on the contrary, tend rather to
teach us to chicane with our own consciences, and by their vain
subtilties serve to authorise innumerable evasive refinements
with regard to the most essential articles of our duty. That
frivolous accuracy which they attempted to introduce into
subjects which do not admit of it, almost necessarily betrayed
them into those dangerous errors, and at the same time rendered
their works dry and disagreeable, abounding in abtruse and
metaphysical distinctions, but incapable of exciting in the heart
any of those emotions which it is the principal use of books of
morality to excite.

VII.IV.34

The two useful parts of moral philosophy, therefore, are
Ethics and Jurisprudence: casuistry ought to be rejected
altogether; and the ancient moralists appear to have judged much
better, who, in treating of the same subjects, did not affect any
such nice exactness, but contented themselves with describing, in
a general manner, what is the sentiment upon which justice,
modesty, and veracity are founded, and what is the ordinary way
of acting to which those virtues would commonly prompt us.

VII.IV.35

Something, indeed, not unlike the doctrine of the casuists,
seems to have been attempted by several philosophers. There is
something of this kind in the third book of Cicero's Offices,
where he endeavours like a casuist to give rules for our conduct
in many nice cases, in which it is difficult to determine
whereabouts the point of propriety may lie. It appears too, from
many passages in the same book, that several other philosophers
had attempted something of the same kind before him. Neither he
nor they, however, appear to have aimed at giving a complete
system of this sort, but only meant to show how situations may
occur, in which it is doubtful, whether the highest propriety of
conduct consists in observing or in receding from what, in
ordinary cases, are the rules of duty.

VII.IV.36

Every system of positive law may be regarded as a more or
less imperfect attempt towards a system of natural jurisprudence,
or towards an enumeration of the particular rules of justice. As
the violation of justice is what men will never submit to from
one another, the public magistrate is under a necessity of
employing the power of the commonwealth to enforce the practice
of this virtue. Without this precaution, civil society would
become a scene of bloodshed and disorder, every man revenging
himself at his own hand whenever he fancied he was injured. To
prevent the confusion which would attend upon every man's doing
justice to himself, the magistrate, in all governments that have
acquired any considerable authority, undertakes to do justice to
all, and promises to hear and to redress every complaint of
injury. In all well-governed states too, not only judges are
appointed for determining the controversies of individuals, but
rules are prescribed for regulating the decisions of those
judges; and these rules are, in general, intended to coincide
with those of natural justice. It does not, indeed, always happen
that they do so in every instance. Sometimes what is called the
constitution of the state, that is, the interest of the
government; sometimes the interest of particular orders of men
who tyrannize the government, warp the positive laws of the
country from what natural justice would prescribe. In some
countries, the rudeness and barbarism of the people hinder the
natural sentiments of justice from arriving at that accuracy and
precision which, in more civilized nations, they naturally attain
to. Their laws are, like their manners, gross and rude and
undistinguishing. In other countries the unfortunate constitution
of their courts of judicature hinders any regular system of
jurisprudence from ever establishing itself among them, though
the improved manners of the people may be such as would admit of
the most accurate. In no country do the decisions of positive law
coincide exactly, in every case, with the rules which the natural
sense of justice would dictate. Systems of positive law,
therefore, though they deserve the greatest authority, as the
records of the sentiments of mankind in different ages and
nations, yet can never be regarded as accurate systems of the
rules of natural justice.

VII.IV.37

It might have been expected that the reasonings of lawyers,
upon the different imperfections and improvements of the laws of
different countries, should have given occasion to an inquiry
into what were the natural rules of justice independent of all
positive institution. It might have been expected that these
reasonings should have led them to aim at establishing a system
of what might properly be called natural jurisprudence, or a
theory of the general principles which ought to run through and
be the foundation of the laws of all nations. But though the
reasonings of lawyers did produce something of this kind, and
though no man has treated systematically of the laws of any
particular country, without intermixing in his work many
observations of this sort; it was very late in the world before
any such general system was thought of, or before the philosophy
of law was treated of by itself, and without regard to the
particular institutions of any one nation. In none of the ancient
moralists, do we find any attempt towards a particular
enumeration of the rules of justice. Cicero in his Offices, and
Aristotle in his Ethics, treat of justice in the same general
manner in which they treat of all the other virtues. In the laws
of Cicero and Plato, where we might naturally have expected some
attempts towards an enumeration of those rules of natural equity,
which ought to be enforced by the positive laws of every country,
there is, however, nothing of this kind. Their laws are laws of
police, not of justice. Grotius seems to have been the first who
attempted to give the world any thing like a system of those
principles which ought to ruin through, and be the foundation of
the laws of all nations: and his treatise of the laws of war and
peace, with all its imperfections, is perhaps at this day the
most complete work that has yet been given upon this subject. I
shall in another discourse endeavour to give an account of the
general principles of law and government, and of the different
revolutions they have undergone in the different ages and periods
of society, not only in what concerns justice, but in what
concerns police, revenue, and arms, and whatever else is the
object of law. I shall not, therefore, at present enter into any
further detail concerning the history of jurisprudence.

End of Notes

The cuneiform inscription in the Liberty Fund logo is the earliest-known written appearance of the word "freedom" (amagi), or "liberty." It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.